September 16, 2009
It is immensely important that you reinstate the original uptick rule based on the "last trade" price. The whole goal of the uptick rule is to prevent short sellers from being able to actually lower the price of a stock themselves, the only rule that does this is the original uptick rule based on the "last trade" price. A short seller would still be able lower the price of a stock themself, if the alternative uptick rule was in place for example if a stock was trading at 20 dollars a share one could still sell it short at 19 a share provided the bid moved up from 18.99 to 19.00 a share, even though the short seller has clearly lowered the stocks price by one dollar per share. A short seller could clearly drive down the price of a stock with the alternative uptick rule in place, they could not lower the price of a stock with the original uptick rule, based on the "last trade" price, in place. Without the original uptick rule the equity markets are vulnerable to being hammered down at any time. An equity market without the original "last trade" based uptick rule scares me to no end. Thank You