From: Carol C. McCrory |
SEC, I note the proposed rule change and your invitation for comments. In my opinion, any regulation of short selling is a step in the right direction. Requiring reports twice a month rather than once a month is not much, but it is better than nothing at all. I believe that naked short selling is out of control, and the public is losing confidence in the market as a whole. I check in on a lot of stock boards, and the general sentiment is that "investing" is little more than gambling; the small investor is powerless when Big Money is involved; unregulated hedge funds significantly manipulate the price of stocks; naked short selling prevails; and finally - the SEC is powerless to regulate all of the above. Now, I don't actually know if these notions are partially true, completely true, or not at all true. What I do know is that Jim Cramer, in a widely distributed video, admitted to and chronicled the manipulation that he participated in and the manipulation that his friends in certain hedge funds participate in, and the result was that for the small investor it was a big eye-opener. I've seen comment after comment that investors have lost confidence in the market. What they now believe is that they are at the mercy of the manipulative behavior of unregulated hedge funds. And the result of that belief is loss of confidence in the markets as a whole. If a lot of people lose confidence in the market, if they continue to believe that they cannot be successful, then the result will be a failure of the markets. That is why I believe that any regulation of short selling is positive. I also think the time period before the regulation takes effect should be shortened. Carol C. McCrory |