Can Short Selling Improve Corporate Investor Protection? ： A Case Study of CITIC Securities

Abstract

This paper takes the "Huge Loss Gate" incident of CITIC Securities as the research object, and explores the impact of the short-selling mechanism on corporate investor protection by combining the practice of short selling through margin trading in China. The study finds that in a weak legal risk environment, although margin selling theoretically has a price discovery function, the spread of false negative information leads to abnormal stock price fluctuations, and the imbalance between short-selling profits and violation costs weakens investor protection. The study indicates that improving the legal supervision system and strengthening information disclosure constraints are prerequisites for the short-selling mechanism to enhance investor protection.