May 10, 2009
Commenting on the potential Short Selling Rules:
I support the uptick rule in the form that is use to be in but I wanted to comment on the leveraged ETFs.
If this rule somehow bans those short ETFs then I am not in favor of it. Wall Steet professionals have had access to far more capital and margins to short stocks all over the place. Individual investors at home have needed a way to hedge against long stock positions for years and these tools offer a suitable way for us to do that with our smaller pools of capital.
When deciding on the direction of all of this please keep in mind the small guys and not just the big guys. We cannot keep telling individual investors to just blindly put in 10% of there pay each month. Please keep the inverse ETFs so we can actually have a chance of keeping up with the Wall Street professionals.
Oh and if you do change it, remember they will find another way so lets make sure your new rules do not make it worse.
thanks
Rick