Often it is a lame excuse, but compa-nies with falling share prices sometimes seek to blame short sellers-those who borrow shares and sell them in the hope of buying them back later at a lower price and pocketing the difference. Short sellers are rarely the mischiefmakers they are portrayed to be. What they do is legal and can improve liquidity in share transactions. It is more questionable when a trader sells a stock short without even taking the trouble to borrow it or make sure it can be borrowed. Such trades are called naked shorts and are the object of a new crop of lawsuits. Sometimes they can disrupt the smooth flow of markets. The main risk is that when the time comes for the short seller to deliver shares, he cannot come up with the goods. In the lingo, that is known as a "fail-to-deliver".
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