[crazygringo]

Any investor who limits themselves to the "long-term" is doing nothing more than allowing execs to get away with bad behavior.

There is absolutely zero evidence that current stock prices don't price in the long-term. Indeed, if there were, savvy investors would arbitrage for that... and then it would no longer be the case. This is pretty much by definition, just Econ 101. (Also, somebody who thinks stocks are biased to the short-term... please explain AMZN's valuations over the past two decades.)

The only people calling for limiting investor ability to sell are executives of companies themselves, who are afraid of accountability from investors. Because sometimes CEO's would rather be lazy or work on their fun (yet unjustifiable) pet projects, than actually build a profitable, sustainable business like investors want. (It's just human nature.)

A "long-term stock exchange" is one of the greatest cons ever played by execs. It is good only for management, at the expense of investors, customers, and everyone else generally. It is simply the removal of accountability, which can never be a good thing.

[LgWoodenBadger]

Doesn’t that same accountability today result in execs selling out the long-term for short-term gains, also for their own benefit at the expense of shareholders?

[crazygringo]

That's certainly a tricky question which essentially is connected to their "insider information", but the answer certainly doesn't rely on limiting others' ability to sell.

Solutions to that generally involve long-term vesting periods for executive shares, e.g. executives can't sell their shares for some extended period of time that is sufficiently "long-term". If the board really made sure incentives were aligned, ideally it would be some period of years after they left the company, so they could never sell while they were in a position to influence the value of shares.

But again, there is absolutely zero reason that should ever apply to someone without insider information, i.e. investors generally.

[jnordwick]

I wish I could rate this comment up but HN, for some reason, had decided I can't and the is no arrow next to it.