"Victimless crime (specifically) for long-term holders."
I assume that I can safely classify you as a long-term investor in MSB.
As such, how were you affected by the share price developments of the past few weeks, other than see the squiggle on the chart move up, and then down to its starting point again?
Has your position been compromised at all? (Your emotions might have been, but not your financial position)
To extend the argument: Like you are a long-term investor in MSB, I am a long-term investor in CBA.
I know CBA is subject to short-selling. In fact, during the course of the past three years offshore hedge funds, betting on a collapse in Australian housing market a la that experienced in the US, were aggressively shorting the major Australian banks.
Yet long-term holders of CBA have been totally unaffected, enjoying significant share price outperformance (and handsome dividends, to boot).
As for "where does "stock lenders smart enough to bring about a short squeeze" fit into the beneficial side of the debate?": I would have thought that to be self-evident, especially to those with a distaste for short-sellers...
The shorts got burnt!
Highly beneficial, no?
Yes, thanks for the frank exchange of views. No need to trade ground strokes any longer.
I will close off by saying that, like me, you will one day come to realise that shorters are not the moral hazards you suspect them to be.
Instead, as the stock market's "immoral charlatans preying on unsuspecting mum and dad investors", they are largely figments of the imaginations of people looking for something to blame for their poor investment decisions.
("I bought a stock. It went down. Those damn shorters!")
MSB Price at posting:
$4.18 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)