[SilasX]

The parent's point was that it does matter if it was sold by someone who had never secured a share of their own to sell in the first place, which puts artificial pressure on prices.

(And before someone jumps in to give me the speech about how the future of civilization depends on market makers being able to fabricate shares long enough to cover: Yes, I know about the exception that permits this. The purpose of my comment was just to clarify what the argument was and that the parent of this comment was not replying to it.)

[WJW]

It does put (a little) pressure on prices, sure. Borrowing money to buy stocks puts a little extra upward pressure on prices. But neither is illegal, neither brings guaranteed profits (naked shorting is regulated so much exactly because of the risks to unrelated market participants if the stock goes up) and neither has the capability to directly harm the underlying company.

[SilasX]

Again, the parent was talking about fabricating non-existent shares, not borrowing existing ones.