May 4, 2009
I am a retiree and I have been trying to manage my own retirement savings rather than pay a professional to charge me a fee and still lose (my) money. Along with many Americans, I watched in horror as my IRA account lost almost 50% of its value. One of my large holdings was JPMorgan common stock so I was devastated to see its value crashing to a fraction of its previous value. That loss definitely sparked my interest in learning what forces could cause such precipitous a loss in value that seemed out of proportion to JPMorgan's fundamentals. That is when I learned about Hedge Funds, short selling and especially naked short selling and the absence of an Uptick Rule to give some protection to small individual investors who worked very hard to responsibly save for retirement and are honestly trying to invest their savings to provide for their retirement years.
I hope that the SEC members will carefully consider small individual investors who don't have mega bucks and a powerful lobby to protect them from the forces who freely use naked short selling to drive down targeted stocks. We need someone to advocate for us and I am one citizen who hopes and prays that you will consider this as you deliberate this issue.