April 30, 2009
Dear Ms. Schapiro,
4/30/09
As an individual investor I am extremely upset by the present short selling policies including naked shorting and borrowing securities (from my broker) without my permission.
I am not against short selling, but what I want to restore my confidence is total accountability.If a company has 100 million shares of stock, there has to be accountability of each and every share every sesond of every day.In my view the short seller must actually borrow the share from someone having a long position and willing to lend it. I am told brokerage houses make a lot of money lending stock back an forth. But I have not given permission to lend mine unless I signed that right away in the fine print.
Every long position I hold at my brokerage and mutual funds must be protected. Allowing short sellers to get these shares is illegal in my view.I bought it I own it And I do not want to lend it to anyone
How can there be an unlimited supply of stock that a short seller can borrow and sell? Sooner or later he must run out of sources to borrow from unless he just pretends to borrow and shorts it anyway. How can this be allowed? In my opinion that is stealing. From me And it has to stop
I believe the uptick rule and all the other proposed rules skirt the real issue of accountability and will allow schrewd money managers new ways to minupilate the market.
ETF's shouldn't be allowed unless they actually get the stock.
I think I have been hurt enough and I intend to reduce my positions in the future and look for other forms of investment instead of the market.