SEC reins in short sellers with new restrictions

Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON Wed Feb 24, 2010 3:14pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities regulators adopted a new rule to restrict short selling more than a year after the financial crisis provoked cries to rein in investors who bet on a stock"s decline.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 on Wednesday for a rule designed in part to boost investor confidence by braking the precipitous fall of a stock.

The SEC did not exempt option and equity market makers from the curb but said hedging could still occur.

The new rule attempts to bridge the divide between lawmakers and companies who argued a market-wide curb on all short selling was needed, and traders who said that any restrictions would hurt market liquidity.

Under the SEC"s rule, if a stock fell by more than 10 percent in a day, a curb would kick in, allowing short selling only above the national best bid.

"The commission was cognizant of the benefits that short selling can provide to the markets," SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said at a public agency meeting.

However, Schapiro said the SEC was also concerned that excessive downward pressure, accompanied by fear of unconstrained short selling, could destabilize markets and undermine investor confidence.

The SEC"s action drew a quick rebuke from famed short seller James Chanos, who said the restrictions would harm investors" interests by driving up transaction costs.

Phillip Goldstein, a hedge fund manager known for a landmark lawsuit that rolled back the SEC"s rights to supervise hedge funds, said, "This is a sign that the commissioners who voted for the new rule don"t really believe in the free market."

Under the new rule, the restriction would last for the day the stock dropped and the day after.

Short sellers bet on a stock"s decline. In a short sale, an investor borrows stock and sells it in the hope that its price will drop. When it does, the seller profits by buying back the stock at the lower price and returning the borrowed shares.

REPUBLICANS DISSENT

During the worst of the financial crisis, lawmakers and companies begged the SEC to clamp down on the short sellers and said the uptick rule should be reinstated.

First adopted after the 1929 market crash, the uptick rule allowed shorting only if the last sale price was higher than the previous price. But the SEC abolished it in 2007 after concluding that it was no longer effective in modern markets.

Democratic SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar said investor trust in a fair and orderly market was essential to the operation of capital markets. "It would be a mistake to undervalue this trust because we cannot assign a dollar figure to it," he said.

The two Republican commissioners, Kathleen Casey and Troy Paredes, dissented and said there was no firm foundation for adopting the new short sale rule.

Paredes said there was no way to know whether implementation of the rule would boost investor confidence. "Human psychology is difficult to predict," he said.

Casey suggested that those who have been clamoring for the old uptick rule will not be satisfied until the SEC reinstated the Depression-era rule.

Casey and Paredes both raised concerns over potential compliance costs that are estimated to be in the billions of dollars. The SEC estimates that it will cost the average broker dealer or trading center at least $70,000 to comply with the new rule and about $120,000 for annual upkeep.

The new SEC rule goes into effect 60 days after it is published in the government"s official federal register. The market will then have six months to comply with requirements.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer and Ryan Vlastelica in New York and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston; Editing by Simon Denyer and Steve Orlofsky)

Lewis Hamilton has confident open in his step

Kevin Eason, Motor Racing Correspondent, Melbourne & , : {}

He arrived fresh from watching his girlfriend getting top marks from the judges for her waltz, but it did not take long for memories to be stirred of Lewis Hamiltons descent from hero to zero in Australia.

A year ago Hamilton was tap-dancing in front of the Australian Grand Prix stewards, trying to spin a story that led to yet another Formula One scandal. He escaped punishment for his role in Liargate but the public judgment was enough to make the youngster think seriously about whether he wanted to remain part of the Formula One show.

But what a difference a year makes as Hamilton stood under blue skies yesterday and enjoyed his renewed romance with Nicole Scherzinger, the Pussycat Doll pop star who is starring in Americas version of Strictly Come Dancing, and with his sport.

Far from dodging questions about Liargate triggered when he followed instructions from his team to say that he was passed by Jarno Trullis Toyota under a safety car he confronted his tainted past and embraced the experience in a show of honesty and maturity that underlines his transition from boy to man.

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I dont look at last years experience as a bad one, the 25-year-old said. I look at it as a stepping stone in my life and something I learnt a whole lot from 2009 was a tough year altogether.

Getting results from a McLaren that was as dodgy as Hamiltons story to the stewards proved the making of a driver who had never before had to struggle with bad machinery.

But that was just part of the transition as one relationship was revived, another terminated. Anthony, his father, is no longer his manager and Scherzinger, whom Hamilton broke up with briefly last year, is back on the scene, although their long- distance relationship is racking up enough air miles for Hamilton to be able to own an airline soon.

In the past ten days he has flown from the last grand prix in Bahrain to the US to support Scherzinger, back to Britain for a McLaren car launch, out to the US again to see Scherzinger perform, then straight to Sydney for a public-relations event and finally to Melbourne last night.

Hamilton seems to be enjoying it, his smile as wide as ever yesterday and optimistic that McLaren will be back on the pace on Sunday. He won here in 2008 and finished fourth last year after starting at the back of the grid. Jenson Button, his new team-mate, took the honours last year for Brawn GP and the vibes that one of them can prevail again are strong.

This circuit should work to the strengths of our car and we feel stronger coming into this race, Hamilton said. Weve learnt a lot from the first race and we can bring that here to Melbourne.

That learning curve has been matched by Hamiltons ability to absorb the lessons of life that were dispensed by Formula Ones judges after this grand prix last year. But this weekend the only dancing Hamilton will want to do will be a victory jig.

Milestone impulse as child undergoes medical operation to renovate trachea

Sam Lister, Health Editor & , : {}

A British kid has undergone a groundbreaking operation involving the transplantation of a windpipe that is being renewed inside his physique utilizing his own branch cells.

Scientists described the procedure, carried out on Monday at Great Ormond Street Hospital, as a miracle impulse in the growth of techniques that could concede people to reconstruct shop-worn or transplanted viscera inside their bodies.

The operation, that lasted scarcely 9 hours, concerned the removal of the boys inadequate trachea the hard red blood vessel that connects the nose, mouth and lungs that was transposed with a donor windpipe.

The organ had been nude of the donors cells to leave a sinewy collagen skeleton that was injected with the childs branch cells.

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The boy, who is elderly 10, perceived the medical operation hours later. Doctors pronounced that the branch cells would proceed to renovate themselves in to inner and outmost tracheal cells inside of his physique over the subsequent month. They combined that their patient, whose temperament is being protected, was you do well, respirating routinely and speaking.

The have have use of of of the childs own branch cells inside his physique to set up up the donor windpipe ensures that it is not deserted by his defence system. With a normal transplant, the risk of rejecting would meant damping down the childs defence complement with suppressive drugs.

Addressing a press discussion at University College London yesterday, the group of British and Italian scientists described the procession as a new thing for the morality in utilizing the preferred laboratory of the human physique to reconstruct the organ.

It follows pioneering surgery conducted in Spain dual years ago on Claudia Castillo, 30, who became the initial chairman to embrace a medical operation organ done from branch cells. She was since a territory of tracheal airway done up from branch cells, but utilizing a most some-more formidable and dear process. On that arise doctors grew the tissue outward the physique by rotating the donor swindle in a special bioreactor prior to transplanting it in to the patients body.

In the boys case, his physique acted as the vital bioreactor. The decellularised windpipe was treated with colour with a bubbly beverage of chemicals written to trigger signals that would concede the tissue to grow in situ.

Professor Martin Birchall, head of translational regenerative disinfectant at University College London, pronounced that since the metamorphosis occurred in the human physique rather than a laboratory, it cost tens of thousands pounds rather than hundreds of thousands. He pronounced the group believed that it would speed the march of organ regeneration, with the probability of relocating in to operations involving the larynx or oesophagus.

We hold the a genuine milestone, he said. It is the initial time a kid has perceived stem-cell organ treatment, and the the longest airway that has ever been replaced. I think the technique will concede not usually rarely specialised hospitals to lift out stem-cell organ transplants.

We dont think the going to reinstate required transplants usually yet, but already there are sure aspects of required medical operation surgery it can be practical to. We need to think about how to have regenerative disinfectant a key piece of the healthcare.

The group enclosed the stem-cell colonize Paolo Macchiarini, from Careggi University Hospital, Florence, who led the Italian, British and Spanish group at Ms Castillos transplant.

The highbrow was approached by the British group after the kid who was innate with a condition called prolonged shred tracheal stenosis, withdrawal him with a windpipe usually 1mm far-reaching by that he was incompetent to inhale suffered an strident episode.

Attempts had been done to vegetable patch up his trachea and hold it open with ancillary stents. But these eroded, deleterious the aorta, the main red blood vessel that takes red blood out of the heart.

Professor Macchiarini pronounced that he was gay at the result so far. He pronounced that in Ms Castillos box it took 6 months to hope for the medical operation organ outward her body, whilst the boys trachea was ready to be ingrained in 4 hours. This is something that creates tissue metamorphosis unequivocally elementary and permitted to everyone.

He pronounced that the implications for destiny treatments went over usually replacing organs. Damaged viscera such as lungs, hearts or livers could be remade by patching them up with branch cells.

We need to shift the philosophy, Professor Macchiarini said. The subject is do we unequivocally need to medical operation the complete organ and put the studious on immunosuppression, or can we kindle branch cells to have it duty again?

Martin Elliott, who led the surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, pronounced that the kid was recuperating well. Hes respirating utterly for himself and speaking, and he says that the simpler for him to inhale than it has been for most years.

The doctors were incompetent to contend when the kid could leave hospital.

Anthony Hollander, of the University of Bristol, who took piece in Ms Castillos treatment, welcomed the advance, but combined that the process was innately some-more indeterminate than laboratory-regenerated organs.

The value is that it can be achieved fast and cheaply, and so if successful it could be done accessible to large numbers of patients at comparatively low cost.

The waste is that there is minimal carry out of the sort of branch cells and the series of cells. Also there is a unequivocally short time in between seeding the cells on to the scaffold.

hair wig

Conservatives discussion launches opinion for shift choosing campaign

Robin Henry & , : {}

The Conservatives have voiced the 6 key themes they will quarrel on in the ubiquitous choosing as they denounced their new debate slogan, "Vote for change."

The celebration used their pre-election open conference, that proposed in Brighton today, to launch a debate focusing on inhabitant debt, boosting enterprise, family, the NHS, propagandize standards and reforming Westminster.

This week the celebration saw the check lead over Labour lead trip to only five per cent and the two-day discussion is being seen as a consequential event to quarrel back.

The Conservatives currently denounced their choosing aphorism Vote for Change, whilst shade chancellor George Osborne has voiced new policies together with an puncture bill and tax-incentives for start-up businesses.

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Writing in the today"s Times, Osborne certified his celebration had been as well easy on Labour not long ago and are right away becoming different their choosing tactic.

Since the New Year, we are the celebration that has been environment out the new process ideas that will shift Britain, he said.

Perhaps that has done it as well easy for the Labour Party to simply conflict us whilst evading inspection themselves.

That will right away change. We will go on to set out the own certain ideas, but we will additionally ask acid questions about Gordon Browns jot down and possibly he has anything new to offer.

People are going begin focusing on possibly they unequivocally wish five some-more years of Gordon Brown. This choosing has turn a choice, a preference in between the past and the future.

Osborne pronounced the Conservatives would not duplicate Labour"s "phoney pledges" to contend their lead in the polls.

He said: "Oppositions have dual paths they can follow. They can possibly guarantee genuine change, or they can fool around it protected with phoney pledges.

"Tony Blair and New Labour did the latter in 1997. It took him to new highs in the polls, but led to new lows of open doubt when the betrothed shift never materialised."

Osborne, who is the aim of a Labour postal debate in Brighton branding him a chancer not a chancellor, will have known a array of mercantile measures this afternoon.

He will oath to revoke house taxation by 3p and cut the rate for small companies to only 20p, whilst new businesses will embrace a one-year mangle from profitable National Insurance for their initial ten employees.

The Conservatives contend the will additionally plunge into the inhabitant debt, have Britain the majority family-friendly nation in Europe, await the NHS, lift standards in schools and remodel politics.

David Cameron will verbalise at the discussion on Sunday.

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Net closes in on Microsoft as users are since leisure to explore

Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter & , : {}

Surfing the internet on a personal computer used to meant apropos a Microsoft patron in the immeasurable infancy of cases. But the companys prevalence looks to be impending the end.

For the initial time, millions of people have been since a possibility to select and download an pick browser the apparatus that people make make use of of to navigate the net rather than utilizing the normal Internet Explorer granted by Microsoft.

Users via Europe were yesterday shown a list shade call people to select a browser to use.

Rivals such as Google plan to gain on the move, piece of a understanding with European Union regulators, by releasing new and softened software.

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Microsoft and EU authorities have outlayed the past decade in a brawl over foe and consumer choice. Last month Brussels forsaken anti-trust charges opposite the association in lapse for Microsoft similar to yield a program refurbish with a pop-up menu of browsers.

Dave Heiner, Microsofts vicepresident, said: Users who get the preference shade will be free to select any browser or hang with the browser they have.

European users can select from Apples Safari, Googles Chrome, Microsofts Internet Explorer, Mozillas Firefox, Opera, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser. The initial five underline majority prominently on the list screen, but differently crop up at pointless on the list page.

Experts pronounced that there were pointed but critical differences in between the browsers. Mozillas Firefox is praised for permitting people to customise it, whilst Googles Chrome is one of the fastest and majority reliable.

Internet Explorers main value is that most are informed with the controls.

In an bid to take on Internet Explorer, Google launched a vital promotion debate in Britain to foster Chrome. Today Google will recover multiform improvements in the browser together with one some-more remoteness controls and a unfamiliar denunciation translator for web pages.

Figures performed by The Times showed that the series of people utilizing Internet Explorer had depressed in the past year. Data from Nielsen, the marketplace researchers, suggested that twelve months ago some-more than 75 per cent of Britons used Microsofts browser, but that has forsaken by some-more than 6 per cent.

Its dual greatest rivals, Firefox and Chrome, have both increasing their share of the marketplace over the same period.

Some experts pronounced that most people would omit the ballot, whilst others pronounced the move represented Microsofts tumble from prevalence and would shift how most people navigated the web.

I think people will notice the list screen, the tough not to, pronounced Sheri McLeish, an researcher at Forrester, the investigate group. Honestly, I cant see Microsoft digging [itself] out of this hole quickly.

Its greatest plea is with the own users of Internet Explorer. If Windows stays popular, afterwards Microsoft competence keep a third or a entertain of the marketplace for browsers, but the not going to suffer the days of 80 or 90 per cent of the marketplace as it has in the past. If Microsoft wants to shift this, they should set up a improved browser.

Mozilla Firefox Pros: Easy to use, secure; can be customised to do all you could want. Cons: Can siphon up memory; might delayed down computer 9/10

Google Chrome Pros: Clean and elementary design. Takes a lot to crash. Cons: might be as well simple, effectively stealing a little features, such as bookmarks to webpages 8/10

Apple Safari Pros: Many tests name it the fastest browser. Slick and stylish. Cons: If you dont similar to Apple design, you wouldnt similar to it. Little possibility to customise 7/10

Internet Explorer Pros: Simple and familiar. Web pages are mostly written with IE in mind. Cons: Some security flaws. Viruses are built with it in mind 6/10

Opera Pros: Good for delayed connections. Cons: Web developers dont have it in mind, so web pages mostly see inaudible and dont work rightly 6/10

AIG cuts the waste but might need some-more state aid

Christine Seib in New York & , : {}

American International Group (AIG), one of the biggest casualties of the monetary crisis, finished a $10.9 billion (�7.2 billion) net loss last year, down from roughly $100 billion in 2008.

The uneasy monetary group, that survived the credit break with the assistance of $182.5 billion of assist from US taxpayers, narrowed the fourth-quarter net loss to $8.9 billion, from $61.7 billion in 2008.

Robert Benmosche, the maestro word senior manager who assimilated AIG as arch senior manager in Aug last year, pronounced that the association had finished good swell in carrying out the restructuring plan, that includes offered non-core businesses, slicing bearing to unsure resources and stabilising the word operations.

However, in papers filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AIG steady the unchanging notice that that it competence need one more supervision aid.

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Without one more await from the US Government, in the destiny there could exist estimable disbelief about AIG"s capability to go on as a going concern, the association said. AIG shares forsaken 9.6 per cent in pre-market trade to $24.87 each.

The association pronounced that the entrance to appropriation from the subsidiaries was limited, as was the capability to await the subsidiaries.

Some of the investments are illiquid, that equates to that it cannot sell those it if needs puncture cash.

The companys fourth-quarter loss was in piece due to a $6.2 billion seductiveness and amortisation strike from shortening the credit trickery with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY).

AIG, that gave the Government a 79.9 per cent interest in the association in lapse for $85 billion of rescue appropriation in 2008, has $24.4 billion credit trickery superfluous with the Treasury and $23.4 billion with the FRBNY.

The organisation additionally took a $1.5 billion after-tax loss on the sale of Nan Shan Life Insurance, the Taiwanese hold up word business, and combined $2.3 billion to the blurb word loss reserves.

By the finish of 2009, AIG had cut the portfolio of derivatives hold by the monetary products multiplication to $940 billion, from $1.6 trillion at the finish of 2008.

AIG Financial Products was the source of the insurers biggest losses, after entering in to trillions of dollars of unsure credit default swaps during the marketplace boom.

Although Mr Benmosche pronounced that he was assured about AIGs outlook, the superfluous businesses face hurdles from the formidable mercantile sourroundings and repairs finished to the companys code by the near-collapse.

General word premiums and sales of hold up word and payments products were down in 2009, AIG said.

Tears tantrums and Olympics over for Britains curling team

Rick Broadbent, Vancouver & , : {}

Eve Muirhead might have compulsory a new brush, after a rage pretension led her and it to fly quickly off the handle, but there is obviously no need for a new brush in British curling.

The teenagers small fit of bother in Mondays 9-8 better by Denmark, withdrawal her with an annoying walk down the ice to get a replacement, was the usually impulse that tricked her age. Her form in her initial Olympics was up and down, and yesterdays 6-5 better by Canada hermetic her fate, but given that she came to Vancouver with a universe ranking of No 7, Muirhead lived up to form if not arrogant expectation.

Im a bit of a captious out there on the ice and I get angry if small shots dont come off, she said, that explained the damaged broom, painful honour and tears strew after the loss to Denmark. You feel unequivocally bad, that youve let the group and a lot of people at home down, but at the finish of the day the only an additional championships.

Jackie Lockhart, the maestro of the team, corroborated Muirhead to lapse to the Olympic theatre as a stronger person. Shes got illusory intensity deliberation that shes nineteen years old, the former universe hold up jump over said. It will mount her in good stead given you sense so most from defeats.

Related LinksRochette carries on after mothers deathCanada buckles underneath complicated expectations Muirhead on thin ice after better by Swiss

Even prior to the Canada game, Muirhead and her group of Lockhart, Kelly Wood and Lorna Vevers knew that it would take a teenager spectacle to progress. They took Canada to an eleventh finish prior to bowing out and tipping the hosts to win gold.

The movement swung opposite Muirhead after a earnest start. Beating China, the universe champions, in the opening compare lifted hopes that this could be a story of hype and glory. Muirhead afterwards single-handedly carried the group to a close better by Sweden, the Olympic champions, followed by dual some-more wins. The bandwagon stalled opposite Japan prior to the wheels came off in the main 6-5 better by a diseased United States team.

Thereafter, Great Britain unsuccessful to win, with Muirheads form dipping.

Curling, though, has obviously changed on given Rhona Martins mill of future in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Just take Britains last dual losses. The initial of those, one they will feel that they should have averted, came opposite a Denmark side led by Madeleine Dupont, a 22-year-old topless model. The second was opposite the roughly compact Canadians, with their 44-year-old skip, Cheryl Bernard.

According to internet analysts, one of the tip searches in new days has been for Bernard swimsuit after word emerged that she has acted for the risqu Women of Curling monthly calendar that has formerly viewed the capitulation of Playboy and most breast-beating from traditionalists. Bernard has additionally created a book called Between The Sheets, that is essentially about curling.

Muirhead previewed the Olympics by revelation The Times that she longed for to move curling to a younger assembly and she is obviously not alone in you do that. Her time might come when she is comparison and a small wiser, though, and she could brush afar the bad memories from here in the subsequent Olympics, in Sochi, Russia. Even right away I can contend this has been the experience of my life, she pronounced mins after exiting the Games.

One of Britains couple of superfluous award prospects, the bobsleighing span of Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke, began their debate overnight. Their rave has been riddled with problems, from Minichiellos eye complaint that indispensable pre-Games surgery to the ripped bodysuit that incited Cooke in to a YouTube sensation.

The bobsleighing has already been a source of debate after a spate of crashes in precision and, in the arise of the genocide of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luger, officials took the preference to have alterations to spin eleven at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Don Krone, of the International Bobsleigh Federation (FIBT), said: Some drivers have been experiencing difficulties transitioning from spin eleven to spin 12. He pronounced that the FIBT lane commission had taken recommendation from the organising committees lane organisation and group captains. The changed dilemma is not the one on that Kumaritashvili crashed.

Breaking point

"Gentle Ben Crenshaw snapped his dabble in ire after going dual down inside of the initial 6 holes during the 1987 Ryder Cup. He was forced to putt with his one-iron and silt crowd for the rest of the compare opposite Eamonn Darcy. Crenshaw lost, nonetheless he took the competition to the 18th green.

Fed up by what he viewed as the joyless ambience of the snooker circuit, Ronnie OSullivan pennyless his devoted evidence in a fit of bother on the eve of the Masters last year. It felt unequivocally good, afterwards I thought, Was that wise? he said.

During the 2000 World Series, Roger Clemens, the New York Yankees pitcher, threw a damaged bat towards Mike Piazza, the New York Mets hitter, as Piazza ran to initial base.

Todays highlights

Speed skating Womens 5,000 metres (9pm)Skiing Womens hulk slalom (9.15pm)Bobsleighing Womens last run (2.10am)Freestyle skiing Womens aerials (3.30am)