July 21, 2010
Please eliminate the ability of organizations to utilze Flash Trading. By eliminating the flash order exception would address the potential for two-tiered access to information concerning the best available prices for a security, encourage the public display of liquidity, and enhance the fairness of the markets for investors.
As of right now the public or layman investor is being held hostage by the so called "Flash Trading" "High Frequency Trading". How can the layman investor compete with a large institution when they do not have the ability to see inside the "Black Box" or move their servers closer to the trading venue.
Please re-instate the origninal "Up-Tick" this will prevent "Flash High Frequency Traders" from commendering the markets yet again, and allow for orderly buying and selling. If they the "Sophistacted Investors" are not smart enough to create an algorithym to handle + or 0 ticks then they should have to abide by the rules that were set forth decades ago.
In addition please elimiante the ability to create a "Naked Short Sale" if you can not find the investment to short, then you may not short it. I do not understand how sophisticated investors are allowed to short a stock when they can not even find the shares to short, creating shares out of thin air. How is it a company can have short interest that exceeds exponentially the amount of shares they have outstanding. In most cases that is called fraud...stating that you have something when you really do not.
Speed is not always a good thing, we have speed limits on our highway system, and the Original Up-Tick rule was the speed bump. Now that it has been removed you can see the devestation that it can cause by being un-regulated, yet again like the 1920's.
Please consider that the Unsophisticated Investor is the one that you need to protect not the big institutions.
Thank You,
Shane Hertel