May 14, 2009
As a small investor trying to recover from the financial devastation of the past year, I have been following the SEC discussion of the uptick rule. If all the SEC can do is the watered down "modified uptick rule" then the agency seems about as helpful to investors as it was under Chris Cox. I took particular interest in the portion of the modified rule which states that instead of prohibiting certain short sales it would simply require trading centers "to establish, maintain and enforce policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent" those short sales. With that kind vague and squishy language why bother doing anything at all? After all the recent evidence of just how well financial institutions have regulated themselves by all means let's let the trading centers set and enforce their own rules. The SEC needs to decide of it is a watchdog agency or just another hedge fund lackey. I'm thinking it is the latter since we have yet to see any prosecutions brought against those who practice 'naked short selling' which is, after all, illegal.