What's so wrong with short selling, and traders in general for...

What's so wrong with short selling, and traders in general for that matter?

1. Short selling can bring you a cheaper price if you want to top up.
2. Shorters don't always get it right.
3. Shorters bring liquidity to a stock. If it wasn't for traders, investors wouldn't be able to liquidate their holding if they needed to in a hurry.
4. Traders have just as fair a right to use the stock market as long term investors.
5. Over the past 5 years, CDU has given long term investors a total growth of -2.7% on their capital compared to July 15 2006. For the record, BHP has grown 53% in five years, and another copper hopeful, RXM, has grown 703% in five years. I know from experience that traders have made far more out of CDU than investors have.

The whole, "but its wrong for someone to sell something that they've only borrowed" line of argument against short selling is a bit of a joke really. They repay their borrowings by buying back to exit their position, similar to how we repay our borrowings on loans when we sell a house that isn't fully repaid.

I used to have a thing against short selling, but I woke up to what was really happening. Profitable trades can be made in both directions. Whether you like it or not, there is nothing ethically wrong with short selling a stock, because every shorter is a buyer eventually. A short trade is simply a long trade in reverse.

Even if CDU were to release news in pre-open on Monday, I doubt the short sellers would be worrying too much because it should be common knowledge to you all by now that the technicals of this stock are pretty dominant on where CDU trades (eg. see those charts I posted the other day).

Just my two cents on short selling :)