Overstock Paddles the Amazon

This column was originally published on RealMoney on May 17 at 1:50 p.m. EDT. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers.

Long-term value investors have a distinct advantage over the short-sellers of Overstock(OSTK Quote). That is, value investors can "buy and hold" this stock and ignore the naysayers.

Short-sellers have no such luxury. It doesn't make sense to "short and hold" Overstock for a couple of reasons.

First, because of lax rule enforcement and woeful internal market controls, there are already twice as many shares sold short (9 million) than are lendable (4.5 million). By my estimation, about 70% of Overstock shares have been certificated or are in the process of being certificated, making short positions problematic. ...