How Do You Confuse A German?

That's an easy one for the German authorities, ban short selling of certain shares and bonds completely out of the blue. Not only that but time your actions to coincide with a period of acute euro weakness.

Not surprisingly the stock market has got the skids under it this morning after these new measures were hastily introduced last night.

Let's face it, who wants to play a game where the rules keep changing halfway through? The safest thing to do is take your money off the table surely?

That appears to be what is happening this morning with the DAX, CAC and FTSE all around 3% lower in early trade.

Meanwhile the euro has fallen below 1.22 against the dollar for the first time in over four years.

The ban also applies to naked short selling in shares of Germany's top 10 banks and insurers, and will last until March 31, 2011. Why these certain shares and why now?

What a very strange way to go about bolstering the markets?