April 9, 2008
Dear Mr. Chairman and Commissioners:
In my comments submitted to you on this subject dated April 5, 2008, I referred to an attached consolidated balance sheet of member firms of SIFMA as of June 30, 2007, showing total failures-to-deliver and failures-to-receive of about $192 billion. In making my submission, I was notified by your website submission system that the attachment was rejected due to (as I understand the message) a format issue. Therefore, I have put the same consolidated balance sheet into a pdf format and am now attempting to file it with you again.
In doing so, I take this opportunity to re-emphasize the astonishing significance of failed deliveries of shares in the magnitude of $192 billion. That sum is almost assuredly already marked down to market value after the share prices of the targeted companies have been driven down by the dilution and reckless sale of the counterfeit shares never delivered to the buyers. Secondly, that staggering amount of dilution is focused upon a limited number of targeted companies, so the financial pressure and harm to them and their shareholders is very substantial - nothing that can remotely be considered merely incidental to normal trading volatility. Trading practices involving such rampant failure to perform add nothing beneficial in the way of liquidity, but instead amount to sheer manipulation of share prices and criminal financial fraud.
In considering the implications of this $192 billion in risk exposure, please consider not just the implications for the financial firms disclosing those exposures but also the multitudes of retail investors whose money has been taken in the process.
(Attached File #1: s70808-279.pdf)