Oct. 08, 2022
October 8, 2022
I vehemently support transaction-by-transaction reporting. Aggregated reporting works against market transparency, and makes enforcement more difficult. A 15-minute reporting requirement, would prevent fraud and prevent hiding in loopholes. I support this initiative as a young retail investor who has already begun to question the legitimacy of
our free markets and the role the SEC plays as a regulatory agency. This is an excellent opportunity for the SEC to prove its commitment to it's strategic plan and put \"working families\" front and center. Timely detection of fraudulent and abusive activity empower regulatory bodies to make punitive and corrective decisions. Aggressive and under-reported short selling that happens without oversight can lead to compounded liabilities, fund managers selling short assets that they have never purchased. Restrictions prevent individual investors from engaging in this risky and speculative practice, Globally Significant Banks and funds should be held to a higher standard.
Working class households and individual investors will have a much better idea of the risks of our decisions and transactions if we can which companies are shorted, to what extent, and by which funds. If funds are allowed to short in the dark, retail investors remain dangerously unaware of the risks they take on when purchasing securities. More timely reporting allows for more timely reactions slower reporting prevents retail investors and working families from protecting themselves from abusive and predatory short selling practices. Working families and the individual investors need to be able to look both ways before they cross Wall Street. Large funds already know retail entries, stop losses, position leverage, and size due to payment for order flow. Being required to accurately mark positions as short, instead of illegally marking shorts as long, and report these positions every 15 minutes would not leave large funds vulnerable. In fact, the mere perception of this vulnerability
would lead funds to better manage their risk to avoid outsized and over-leveraged positions in the first place. Unreported short selling hampers true price discovery, and undermines investor confidence on a global scale.
For the market to maintain legitimacy for a new generation of global investors, Investor protection comes first.
I strongly support increased transparency and mandating the reporting of securities that have been loaned, especially when those lenders loan their securities on behalf of banks, insurance companies, and pension funds. When securities become lost and obscured in layers of increasing margin, or loaned without those assets ever coming under ownership of the lender, those securities become hypothetical and can lead to catastrophic inflation of liquidity, as witnessed in 2008. I do not wish to trade in a hypothetical market. I vehemently support the adoption of this resolution, and encourage the SEC to regain the confidence of billions of individual investors, worldwide, by advocating on our behalf by holding those who lend securities to a higher standard of accountability. Same day reporting is a must.