Oct. 29, 2022
To All So Concerned, To the Commission, I support this rule and urge the Commission to implement. It is well known to hundreds of thousands of retail investors at the present time that since digitization of certificate depository records at DTC participants have found innumerable ways to manipulate markets via short sale strategies. In this instance, when I say 'manipulate,' I mean low-risk or risk-less: the antithesis of free markets. Even conventional short selling has problematic effects. Each short sale generates a new, phantom share into the market. Proxy agents have disclosed they have no solution for the disruption this causes to corporate voting. Prevailing strategies include vote trimming and scaling -- anything but a free and fair election. How am I, as a prospective investor, to understand the risks of my investment if I do not know the extent to which this has taken place? Short sale market manipulation strategies have evolved since certificate digitization to reach systemic scale. From small takes in early days, on to penny stocks, now large cap companies dismantled and drained of their market caps. This redirection of wealth from the working, generative, and creative to the unscrupulous is more than a travesty of 'systemic risk.' It is real lives, real suffering being affected. Main street, on a systemic level. Of course, a malady born of ignorance does not go away with further ignorance, much as a crumbling foundation doesn't improve until we at last take light down into the darkness and finally survey the extent of the damage. Short sales absolutely must be reported just as longs are reported. And no more loopholes. It all gets shown. No swaps, out of the money puts, 'de-guaranteed' foreign affiliates, married options, "mis-markings," wrist slappings. It all gets shown. And on a meaningful basis. I am a individual retail investor. I am not politically connected, I don't make large campaign contributions. I can't offer you a high paying job at a Wall Street firm when you leave public service. Why listen to me? Because I am the People. I am the People who grow the food you purchase in the supermarket. The People who fix your drain when it gets clogged. The People who drive the bus you take on your way to work. The People who seek ways to better the education of your children. I am awake, watching, discussing with my neighbors. Yes, I am only one retail investor, but I am also more than that. I am the promise of a democratic, free, and fair America envisioned by our forebears centuries ago. The Commission has not the obligation but the chance to further this cause by implementing meaningful short sale reporting requirements, and I urge them to do so. Andrew Gervais Retail Investor