April 19, 2009
It seems ludicrous to ignore the SECs own findings at the time you eliminated the uptick rule "The general consensus from these analyses and the roundtable was that the Commission should remove price test restrictions because they modestly reduce liquidity and do not appear necessary to prevent manipulation. In addition, the empirical evidence did not provide strong support for extending a price test to either small or thinly-traded securities not currently subject to a price test."
It seems the SEC is bowing to political pressure from elected officials rather than standing firm with what the facts told you. In my opinion, reinstating the uptick rule in any form will hurt individual investors and day traders the most and will accomplishing little to prop up stocks that are priced to high.
It seems to me our elected political leaders are only interested in legislating stock prices to go up. During periods of irrational exuberance, we never see calls from our legislators for a down tick rule.
If the SEC is interested in doing something worthwhile, enforce the current naked short selling rules already on the books by prosecuting the offenders. Maybe the Reg SHO list would then have some meaning. It would also be nice to see more than a few token prosecutions of the criminals behind the never ending stream of pink sheet scams perpetrated in the US.
Please do not reinstate the "uptick rule" in any form...