April 30, 2009
I am writing to urgently request reinstatement of the uptick rule, please. I strongly believe that without the rule, millions of dollars will be lost in the stock market, as seen last year with Bear Stearns. Large trading entities such as hedge funds, Wall Street institutional traders, and block traders are savagely manipulating high quality stocks downward, simply to greedily make a profit off of the backs of smaller investors. If you want a good example, just look at the nonsensical charts on Novavax (NVAX) for this last week of April. Someone is firmly in control of this share price and is able to manipulate it anywhere they want to take it.
Everyone who invests or trades in stocks is being adversely affected by this rule change, and daily I see good stocks attempting to move upward which get repeatedly and mercilessly beaten back down and held down for the benefit of the short sellers. Even worse is that hedge funds are shorting stocks and then starting rumors to scare away buyers and precipitate more massive sell-offs, all the while making millions for themselves. This is a terribly unfair advantage. This is not right and is ruining small investors as well as the unfortunate companies who are the targets of these actions.
I plead with you to expeditiously reinstate the uptick rule, which served us well for about eighty years until July 6, 2007, when it was abolished. Doing so will level the playing field for large and small investors, eliminate some of the terrible volatility we have recently experienced, and help to stabilize our economy.
I ask you to please consider this situation immediately and help to work out a reasonable outcome. I appreciate your assistance very much.