June 12, 2006
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the above referenced NYSE Rule proposal (SR-NYSE -2005-90), specifically relief from requiring statements to certain institutional customer conducting all transaction in an account in accordance with NYSE Rule 387 (COD Orders). Based on my experience with institutional customer accounts (COD Accounts) we believe the proposed relief is consistent with the Exchange Act and does not compromise the purpose or protective measures of the applicable rule.
Although the proposal serves to provide regulatory and operational relief to broker dealers conducting institutional customer business, I believe it contains one unintended condition that inhibits the benefits of such relief while providing little to no additional protective value. The conditions referred to above is "(3) The account does not show security or money positions at the end of the quarter" which I believe should be either removed or revised to state "(3) The account does not show security or money positions at the end of the quarter unrelated to transactions subject to NYSE Rule 387" to take into consideration security and money positions resulting from fails to deliver and/or receive.
I believe that retaining the condition in its original form will only serve to confuse institutional clients electing to suspend receiving statements when a statement is required to be issued as a result of a failed securities receipt or delivery occurring on the last settlement day at the end of a calendar quarter when such client would not normally expect to receive one. Another consideration is that a portion of the relief obtained from the suspension of delivering statements would be offset by requiring broker dealers to monitor its consenting COD Accounts for money and position balances at the end of each calendar quarter to determine whether the broker dealer had a statement delivery obligation for any of such accounts. Lastly, my understanding of market practice is that COD account owners predominantly looked to their clearing agent(s) for the status of its security and money balances and that providing random statements to such customers for failed transactions would not provide any additional benefit.