January 22, 2022
Commissioners,
On Friday January 21, 2022, we all saw on display globally the brazen disregard for rules and ethics that market-makers, brokers and hedge-funds were willing to commit, in order to keep hundreds of thousands of call options out of the money, and to pin the price of ticker symbol AMC down.
I am sure you saw this too. These bad actors allegedly used more than 7 million borrowed-synthetic shares to suppress the buy orders that had a ratio of 11:2 over sell orders on this trading day, yet the stock price closed in the red. They also allegedly did this by delaying or parking buying order flow in favor of selling order flow. It appears they were allowed to just ignore the rules of a public market in broad daylight, as if the market was for their own benefit.
I believe Friday proved that the whole world now knows how the bad actors are manipulating borrowed shares designed to short a stock, but then never covered with actual shares, and only used to drive down the price of the stock. You know that naked shorting is illegal, and your Proposed Rule will help bring such unethical practices to light.
Please understand that it is time for swift implementation and accountability of the hedge funds, market-makers and brokers who engage in these practices with high frequency trades and algorithms that abuse any chance of fair play in the public market. This is not retail creating or causing the possibility of a meltdown. Just like in 2008, this is all caused by institutions who were abusing their positions to harm the public. That retail is pushing back should not be held against us. All we are doing is buying and holding. They are doing all of the manipulating. Please turn on the lights.
All of us retail traders hope and expect that you stand up to the institutions through Rules such as Proposed Rule 10-c1. Please do not dishearten us with more delays and instead bring back trust, which Mr. Gensler recently said in on CNBC was essential to a healthy and functioning public market. The exchanges belong to all of us. Not just the powerful who engage in high frequency trades and proprietary algorithms. Thank you for allowing me to comment.
I.C. Moon