> The price of a stock is the value of its discounted cash flows. Nearly. There ARE a few other reasons to own a stock, such as the right to influence the gove

> The price of a stock is the value of its discounted cash flows. Nearly. There ARE a few other reasons to own a stock, such as the right to influence the governance of a company. (I agree that shorting is an important market mechanism that protects against frauds and bubbles. I am much less sure that naked shorting provides value. In fact, I'm not sure I have ever heard an argument for why naked shorting is valuable... they always turn out to be arguments for why shorting is useful.)