SEC may finalize short sale disclosure in weeks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Final rules requiring big investors and hedge funds to disclose their short positions to U.S. regulators will be considered in May or June, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said on Tuesday.

The SEC rule requiring big investors to reveal their short positions to the agency expires at the end of July.

"I don't know whether we will extend that rule or whether we might fine-tune it some," Schapiro told the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit in Washington.

Schapiro said she did not yet have a view on whether those short positions should be disclosed publicly.

Short selling has been blamed by some lawmakers and executives for deepening the financial crisis and driving down share prices. But traders and asset managers say short sellers are being unfairly blamed for a plunge in stock prices that occurred as the housing market bubble burst and exposed risky bets by financial institutions.

(For summit blog: blogs.reuters.com/summits/)