January 24, 2009
Dear Sir:
I have a comment on the actions of the SEC regarding finacial stocks:
1. I think the SEC should indefinitely ban short-selling of financial institutions. Since these institutions must meet regulatory capitalization leves, they are particularly vilnerable to the action of short-sellers (especially that of billion dollar hedge funds around). Yhe SEC did ban short-selling in September, but then allowed it back again only to give free raign to people like John Paulson and has hedge fund, who has made 30 billion so far, causing losses to bank investors and forcing our governmenet and the UK to bail out the affected banks. The action of the SEC in reinstating short-sale for bank stocks in the present situation seems a bad idea and I urge the SEC to reinstate the ban.
2. There was an uptick rule for short-selling (people who put that in palce knew waht they were doing). My susggestion is that th SEC bring that back. We need a more satble situation if investors other than short-sellers will be attracted to buy stocks to provide capital to US business.
3. I believe it is unfair that brokerage firms lend stocks owned by their clients to short-sellers whose actions will be to bring the value of their stocks down. More transparencuy is needed: brokerage firms should require consent of investors to lend their stock to shor-sellers and explain the risk of lending their stock to short-sellers. As it is investors are unwittingly contributing to their losses, with the conivance of brokerage firms. According to recent news, some pension funds have notified their brokers that they do not allow brokerage firms to lend their stock for purpose of short-selling. I think the SEC should make a general rule requiring brokerage frims to obtain explicit written aauthorization of investors to lend their shares to short-sellers.
I appreciate the opportunity to express my comments.
Sincerely,
A. Carlos Quicoli