July 9, 2005
To whom it may concern,
Allowing market makers to short over 1/2 % of an outstanding is a tragedy. The combined shorting should be severely limited and its intent is to only make the market. Allowing a market maker to short too much allows them to manipulate the market, rather than make it.
Your responsibility is to the stockholders, not the market makers. I will not vote or waste my families votes on officials that allow this to exist. Any public official that prefers manipulation of the system will see it from the sidelines soon. You are ruining the system and any investor can see that you are allowing small companies, which create a large amount of jobs, to pay the penalty.
Naked short selling is a travesty and you should not be able to sell and not return the shares. It is that simple.
Please help the markets, small companies, and all Americans by creating and enforcing reasonable rules that favor the investor rather than market makers and foreigners. After all, whose side are you on?
Thomas Yahner