| Short Sale Rule |
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What Does Short-Sale Rule Mean? A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) trading regulation that restricted short sales of stock from being placed on a downtick in the market price of the shares. Short sales could only be permitted on upticks (last trade higher than the one before) or zero-plus ticks (last trade is the same as previous, which was an uptick). The regulation was passed in 1938 to prevent selling shares short into a declining market; at the time market mechanisms and liquidity couldn't be guaranteed to prevent panic share declines or outright manipulation. |

