May 5, 2009
In my experience as a small investor I have watched and read how large hedge funds have acted in concert to drive down the prices of large institutions. After what we have seen the past year, and many years of investing on my own, I believe that the "retail" investor needs the protection of a reinstated uptick rule.
We have now seen how helpless we are in the face of concerted and calculated attacks on companies by "short sellers." I still don't understand why the rule was overturned in the first place. I understand that electronic selling compromised its mechanism, but I fail to see why it wasn't bolstered instead of abandoned.
I do not believe in the calls of the short sellers that they will be able to work around it. Not if it's sensibly reconstructed.
Our financial system has prospered because people have been willing to put money into the markets. Please act on behalf of those of us who want to see the markets reconstructed, not deconstructed.