September 19 in business history: a short-selling ban and a guarantee on one Friday, a board's new CEO, and a treaty one side tried to leave
Three September 19 commitments — the SEC's 2008 short-selling ban alongside the Treasury's money market guarantee, Nike's board replacing its chief executive in 2024, and the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 — were each worth what stood underneath them.
Three commitments were made on three different September 19s, and each of them can be put to the same use. In 2008 the Securities and Exchange Commission banned short selling in the shares of 799 financial companies, and the Treasury promised the same day that money market funds would keep their dollar. In 2024 Nike's board replaced its chief executive. In 1960 India and Pakistan signed a treaty over six rivers. What each promise turned out to be worth was settled by what stood underneath it: a balance sheet at the Treasury, a river gauge and an arbitral forum between two governments, and at Nike the operating authority of the executive the board handed the job.
The SEC's ban: 799 stocks and 19 days
On Friday, September 19, 2008, the SEC prohibited short selling in the securities of 799 financial companies, effective immediately, under the emergency authority in Section 12(k)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act 1. The Commission said it acted in concert with Britain's Financial Services Authority, which had taken similar action the day before, and Chairman Christopher Cox said the emergency order "will restore equilibrium to markets" 1.
The order carried its own clock. It was to end at 11:59 p.m. on October 2 unless the Commission extended it, and the emergency authority allowed no more than thirty calendar days in total 1. On October 1 the SEC extended the ban to the third business day after the stabilisation legislation was signed, and in any case no later than October 17 2. Congress approved that legislation on October 3 3, so the ban lapsed on October 8 — nineteen days after it began.
The Treasury's promise that Friday was built on a different foundation. Money market funds were already running: the Reserve Primary Fund had broken the buck on September 16, after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and within a week roughly $300 billion had left prime money market funds 4. The Treasury's Temporary Guarantee Program, announced on September 19, covered only shares investors already owned at the close of business that day, admitted only funds still at or above $0.995 a share — the fund that had already broken the buck was shut out — and drew on the Exchange Stabilization Fund, which held about $50 billion 45.
At its height the programme covered 1,486 funds holding $3.2 trillion in assets, 93 percent of the money market fund market as of the eligibility date. It ran until September 18, 2009, after two extensions. The Treasury paid no claims and collected $1.2 billion in participation fees, and although as many as one-third of the hundred largest funds saw net asset values fall far enough to threaten the dollar, in every case the fund's own sponsor put money in to stop it 4.
Decision mirror: Türkiye's Capital Markets Board imposed a short-selling ban on March 23, 2025, after the Borsa İstanbul index fell 16.6 percent in a week, its worst run since October 2008, following the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul 67. The ban was extended several times, lapsed on August 29, 2025, and was in force again by March 29, 2026, extended to the end of the April 10 session 78.
Nike's board: the person in a day, the mix in two years
On September 19, 2024, Nike's board named Elliott Hill president and chief executive, effective October 14. John Donahoe would retire from the role and from the board on October 13 and stay on as an adviser through January 31, 2025 9. Hill had spent 32 years at Nike and ran its consumer and marketplace business before retiring in 2020; the company credits him with helping to build it past $39 billion in revenue. Executive chairman Mark Parker said the board had weighed "the past performance of the business" in a succession process it ran itself 9. The shares rose in extended trading on the news, with the stock down about 24 percent for the year to that point 10.
The business the board was fixing had been reorganised around selling direct. Nike spent years cutting wholesale accounts and pushing shoppers to its own stores and website, until April 2024, when Donahoe told CNBC that Nike had "over-rotated away from wholesale a little more than we intended" 11.
Two years later the mix has moved back and the top line has not moved at all. In the year to May 31, 2026, Nike's revenue came in flat, at $46.4 billion. Wholesale, the business it had been cutting, rose 6 percent to $27.5 billion; Nike Direct fell 6 percent to $17.7 billion, with digital down 12 percent; Converse fell 31 percent to $1.2 billion. Net income was $3.1 billion, or $2.10 a share, 3 percent lower than the year before 12. Hill's own summary of the year: "we continue to face top-line headwinds" 12.
Decision mirror: lululemon handed the company to two interim co-chief executives when Calvin McDonald stepped down at the end of January 2026, and its board then took seven months to fill the seat 1314. The executive it hired is Heidi O'Neill, a former Nike senior executive, who started on September 8, 2026 — four days after the company missed revenue expectations, cut its full-year outlook, and watched the shares tumble 15.
The Indus Waters Treaty: nine years to write, sixty-six to test
India's prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Pakistan's president, Ayub Khan, signed the Indus Waters Treaty at Karachi on September 19, 1960, nine years after the World Bank began mediating between them at the initiative of its president, Eugene Black. The Bank signed too 16.
The design split the rivers by name. The three western rivers — the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab — went to Pakistan; the three eastern rivers — the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej — to India, with limited use allowed on the other side's rivers. A Permanent Indus Commission, one commissioner from each country, was to exchange information about what each side was building and drawing. Disagreements climbed a ladder of three forums: "questions" went to the Commission, "differences" to a neutral expert, and "disputes" to an ad hoc Court of Arbitration. The Bank's own role is procedural — it names the people who sit in the two forums and holds the money that pays the neutral expert 16.
That machinery went to work early and often. The Baglihar case, decided in 2007, took about eighteen months; the Kishenganga case, decided in 2013, took about three years; the treaty held through the wars in between 16.
In April 2025 India placed the treaty "in abeyance" after an attack in Kashmir killed 26 civilians. Pakistan then asked the Permanent Court of Arbitration to rule on whether the treaty still existed, and the court heard the case at the Peace Palace from April 26 to 28, 2026, with only Pakistan in the room. On August 31, 2026 its five members ruled unanimously that the treaty "remains fully in force" and that India "must observe its obligations". India rejected the ruling within hours, called the court "illegally constituted", and said the abeyance stands 17. The Permanent Indus Commission has not met since May 2022, and Pakistan says India stopped sharing routine river-flow data and blocked site inspections in 2023 17.
Decision mirror: when Nippon Steel's purchase of U.S. Steel closed on June 18, 2025, Washington's consent came with a golden share written into the company's governance — a stake that lets it veto a plant closure — alongside a $14 billion investment commitment. "If we don't trust that you're going to do the right thing," the Roosevelt Institute's Todd Tucker told NPR, "we're going to sit on the board and make sure that you do the right thing" 1819.
The diligence test
Four questions for a commitment you are about to make:
- What is standing behind it? The Treasury put $50 billion of the Exchange Stabilization Fund behind other people's fund shares; the SEC's ban had a paragraph of authority and a closing date.
- Who is allowed to switch the machinery off, and what keeps running after they do? India's abeyance left a treaty declared to be in force with a joint commission that has not met since May 2022.
- Which number has to move before the announcement was worth anything? Nike reversed the wholesale and direct mix inside two years, and revenue was still $46.4 billion and flat.
- What does the other side lose by not performing? Nippon Steel's $14 billion commitment sits behind a share that lets the government veto a plant closure; the guarantee charged money funds a fee and gave them a reason to stay enrolled.
References
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- 4Yale Program on Financial Stability: Temporary Guarantee Program for Money Market Funds
ypfsresourcelibrary.blob.core.windows.net
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- 7Eryürekli: Short Selling in Turkish Capital Markets
eryurekli.com
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- 13lululemon athletica inc.: lululemon athletica inc. Announces CEO Succession Plan
corporate.lululemon.com
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