August 21, 2009
Ms. Harmon,
Thank you for taking the time to respond & let me know that my comments may not have been received.
What I would like the you to know is that in my opinion, the uptick rule was put in place 60 plus years ago to protect the individual, less sophisticated investors from the abuses that took place in the market many years earlier. It worked as sort of a circuit breaker for many years. I think that it was a mistake for it to have been taken away.
By not having the uptick rule in place, it allowed a short seller to drive the price of a stock down with continuous sale orders and nothing in place to prevent this from turning into manipulation of a stock’s price. I know that one of the arguments against reinstating it, is that it prevents hedging. That is just a short seller/hedge fund talking their book as it could prevent them from making even more money. In this age of electronic trading, certain price breaks bring even more selling and further price drops and traders know this. Hedging can be done through ETFs and options as well as short selling. There are other options available.
With the advent of the ETFs which do not have a uptick rule that covered them, hedging can be done and is done through the shorting of ETFs. I also believe that the uptick rule should cover ETFs as well. By not having the ETFs covered by the rule it is less effective.
The CEOs who argue that short sellers are manipulating their stock price, more often than not, seem to have fundamental problems in their companies and are just trying to prevent a further stock decline. Both side talk their book.
The rule was originally put in place to instill public confidence that the stock prices could not be manipulated. It is my opinion that we are in desperate need to restore the investing public’s confidence that the system cannot be manipulated. This is the main reason to reinstate the uptick rule. The professional investors are always able to adjust to the new rules. Let them readjust to the trading rules that they operated under for 60+ years.
Very Truly Yours,
Rick Kearney