February 20, 2020
While I am only a small retail investor, and am self directed, I subscribe to an excellent financial adviser. I do invest partially in leveraged and inverse ETFs. The proposed rules for these reputable funds will be strict enough to ensure safety for an investor like me. To then force the broker/dealers to "evaluate each individual investor's financial knowledge and experience for being capable of evaluating the risk of certain funds" will place undue expense and complication on said brokers, and that expense will of course be passed to to the investor. And how could one even construct such over-sight to be fair and equitable for all circumstances? Those who invested in that fund that speculated in the VIX were indeed foolish. But you cannot legislate against fear, greed, and stupidity. Will you next curtail the ability of an individual to invest in a stock like Tesla, which fluctuated 43% last week? Once you start down this slippery slope of trying to save everyone from themselves there will be no end. We all make mistakes from time to time, but unfortunately that's how we learn, And I must say that I resent any government agency that continues to circumscribe more and more my freedom of choices and responsibility.