May 5, 2009
It's hard to believe that any rational person who observed or experienced the market plummet this past year would hesitate to re-instate the uptick rule. The stock market was raped last year by the short sellers, and observing so many stocks sink before my eyes was not only scarey, but terribly unfair to the majority of retail investors. I watched stocks whose charts were dragged down at an appalling rate within a few minutes for no apparent reason. The momentum was beyond reason and clearly the work of a few major shorts. It's clear to me, after trading in the market for the last 10 years, the hedge funds and the like, play with the market, bending it to their greed, with little thought to capital growth for the rest of us, both the individual investor and the companies that depend on this capital. Buy and hold is a joke when these guys manipulate the market like it is their own slot machine, and they are the "house". It is time the SEC step in and make this right. Failure to do so will send a signal to us, the investors, that there is no fairness or level playing field for investors today. Thank you, Amy B.