Securities and Exchange Commission May 7, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Securities and Exchange Commission is making technical corrections to rule amendments adopted in Release No. 33-9006 (February 11, 2009), which appeared in the Federal Register on February 19, 2009 (74 FR 7748). Specifically, the Commission is making certain corrections to conform to technical amendments adopted in Release No. 33-9002A (April 1, 2009), which appeared in the Federal Register on April 7, 2009 (74 FR 15666).

In light of current instability in the financial markets and the erosion of investor confidence, the Commission is evaluating the issue of short sale price test restrictions and short sale circuit breakers. On April 8, 2009, the Commission unanimously voted to propose two new approaches to short selling regulation. The first approach proposes two permanent market-wide short sale price test restrictions. The second approach proposes three circuit breaker rules that, when triggered by a significant intraday decline in a security's price, would impose either a temporary halt on short selling of an individual security, or a temporary price test restriction.