Oct. 08, 2022
October 8, 2022 I am an individual investor that engages in the US capital markets and write today to comment on the SEC's proposed rule S7-18-21 for Reporting of Securities Loans. I have noted that a number of large institutions, particularly hedge funds have submitted comments on this rule suggesting it is withdrawn or amended to a more watered down version. Another obvious attempt from those who operate and profiteering from working with a lack of transparency to maintain their highly lucrative and harmful operation. Some of these insitutions have even gone so far as to suggest that this would negatively impact retail investors, which is blatantly false and disingenuous statement for any institution to make. It is beyond clear that these institutions are simply parroting such false statements to try to maintain their profit levels, rather than do what is best for individual investors and the market as a whole. The proposed rule in its current form would highly benefit retail investors, pension funds due to the increased transparency. The rule would provide a better idea of the risks involved with the investment we're making, before it is made. When short selling practices occur in dark pools and \"current\" short sale information is provided long after a position has been entered into, retail investors cannot be aware of the risks that they take on when buying securities. You can understand why this lack of information would represent a problem for all investors, who are expected to invest on incomplete and dated short sale information. I support the intraday 15 minute reporting requirement. The cost and effort involved with this is justified to help in early identification of abusive shorting practices, to reduce the ability of toxic market participants to hide behind loopholes and to attempt to prevent such fraud occuring in the capital markets. The new rule would also provide any victimised companies a greater ability to defend themselves against predatory short selling, as short selling in the dark harms true competition and price discovery. The enactment of this rule would also introduce the ability for the general public as well as public companies to serve as watchdogs for the SEC as an initial line of defense against abusive practices, by being able to more granularly monitor short selling for securities fraud for those securities they are invested in, helping and strengthening the SEC's ability to fulfil it's mandate and to help weed out market participants that are working against SEC rules, all at no additional cost to the SEC. I am a strong supporter of transaction by transaction reporting. It is clear that aggregated reporting is not transparent and provides far too much rope where fraud can be hidden in aggregates. Why should one individual or entity have to suffer a worse execution whilst another individual or entity benefits from a better execution, just because it is more convenient for certain institutions to report their short selling practices in the aggregate? It is wholly unfair and contrary to the requirement of best execution and so it should be a mandated requirement for transaction by transaction reporting. In conclusion, I support the Short Sale Reporting rule in its current format and recommend that this should be enacted in it's current format to help all manner of investors better understand the risks involved with the investments they are making, before they are made. Cordially, JR