June 11, 2009
Chairman Schapiro, I believe that the SEC would be well served if they seriously considered the contents of the article posted below.
At what price do we protect liquidity? To what evidence have the member firms and large volume traders demonstrated by analysis the impacts there will be to liquidity if the Commission were to impose a mandatory pre-borrow on short sales and implement a modified uptick rule? Certainly no public comment memo posted to date has alluded to any analysis conducted. Most only refer to theories and conjecture. Didn't these same individuals and firms do the same when regulation SHO was implemented only to be proven wrong? Liquidity and trade volume increased after SHO despite the chicken little arguments of Wall Street.
As the Commission continues to meet with Exchanges, who care more about liquidity than investor protection because liquidity equates to revenue, remember the scandals of the past and what has come of them. How many more public floggings can the SEC afford to take by cowering to industry lobbyists and their self interests while failing to detect and deter fraud against the investing public? Haven't these self-serving lobbyists done enough harm to the reputation of the agency? Wasn't it the lobbyists who wanted the grandfather clause, promised to play nice, and then abused it?
You asked for public sentiment and you have received just that. Thousands of people voiced their opinion and the results are overwhelmingly lopsided. Both the general population and the public have spoken and spoken loudly. But have they been heard?
Members of the Commission continue to hold private meetings with the member firms and exchanges have the SEC similarly reached out to the members of Congress or the public for equal time? To what degree does the Commission really care what the public and Congress have to say? If actions speak for itself, not much
Lets just hope that the public is not disappointed when the final ruling changes comes down this time around. July is just around the bend and as expected, the SEC will take the interim temporary final rule down to the wire before addressing its conclusion.
For the record, the SEC claims to have taken this issue seriously (short sale abuse) and has admitted to its existence. Why then have there been almost no cases to speak of out of the Division of Enforcement? Could it be that the manner in which the SEC has accepted trade failures has made it near impossible to differentiate illegal trades from real trades? When will the public become exposed to the serious resolve of the Division of Enforcement to address this issue?
Dave Patch
Copyright material redacted. Author cites the following article:
Weidner, David, "How Traders Killed Value Investing," Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2009 at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124465076778202561.html.