If an investor acquired a stock sufficiently under the current price, of course the price can decline while he sells at a profit.

I don’t have this securities-regulation thing down pat yet, but if at first you don’t succeed…

The correct answer lies in the uptick rule. Don’t just reinstate it. Give it teeth!

No common or preferred stock shall be traded in the United States except at a price greater than or equal to the preceding price.

Take that, you unAmerican pessimists!

Assume for the sake of argument that the market is locked into a downward spiral and a catastrophic crash can only be avoided by external intervention.

Ad hoc, kneejerk regulatory responses are even more transparent attempts at manipulation than what short sellers are allegedly doing. At worst, such responses, coming on the heels of political/bureaucratic incompetence and phony reassurances from Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, et al, will only aggravate the panic. At best, kneejerk regulation is likely to lock in distortions that will impair the competitiveness of US markets going forward.

If the threat is not catastrophic, let the market do its work of creative destruction[1]. If the threat is catastrophic, close the market for a week or two and coordinate a solution with a critical mass of domestic and foreign heavy hitters.
————-
[1] There is also the alternative of letting the market sort out the mess even if the threat is catastrophic.

At first blush I agree with you. If buyers and (short) sellers are exempt from uptick/downtick conditions, then buybacks should also be exempt.

To some extent it’s a special case when an entity deals in its own shares. IMO it’s sensible to forbid a company or its insiders to short the stock (as was done during the 1929 period). Maybe similar considerations hold for the buyback downtick condition, but offhand I don’t see why they’re compelling enough to put buybacks at a disadvantage to other purchases.
************
Hey, if we’re going to regulate, let’s regulate effectively.

A modest proposal:

No common or preferred stock shall be sold in the United States except at a profit to the seller.

This way stocks will only go up!

The last two market tops — one in the spring of 2000, the other last October, when the Dow pushed through all-time highs — had little in common…(p)Here’s what both market tops did have in common, at least for Cramer: He buried his head under the pillow and pretended logic made no sense. He told investors to discard everything they’d learned over the years as nonsense. He told investors to keep buying stocks just because it felt good. Without peeking, I’m sure you can guess the outcomes.

Cramer is an energetic entrepreneur, but that doesn’t mean he’s cut out to formulate long-term policy.