April 15, 2009
SEC
Amendments to Regulation SHO
I have been a life long Republication and Investor. The majority of Investors across the U.S. work at difficult jobs all day and don't have the time to read or the computer power to extract data on our investments on a daily basis. We invest because we think the fundamentals of a Company are good and there is the potential for future value. If economic circumstances change or a companies prospects change these changes are usually slow and give us time to react by selling.
It is extremely stressful to review our investments and see significant changes on a daily basis because some kid two years out of MIT designed a program to "short" stocks and together with his friends move the market that day. "Short" selling benefits an extremely minute number of investors who have a very short term investment horizon. Our financial markets should be geared to long term investors who create value for U.S. Companies and generate long term thinking and investments that will make our companies better able to compete on global markets rather than the Quarter to Quarter thinking going on now.
To the Republicans on the Committee, especially Kathleen Casey, I would say step back from the Hedge Fund spin doctors. There is no question they are major contributors to the market's turmoil and accelerated the loss of trillions of dollars in market values. They are only filling their own pockets without any economic value to our society. Let them trade Puts and Calls if they think the market or a company's future is not bright. Let the rest of us buy stock in companies we think will do well in the future and ride the investment until we think otherwise.
The SEC should be doing everything in its power to minimize the success of "short" selling and increase the benefits to long term shareholders.
Dan Kletter