April 17, 2020
I have not seen from your site other reading what purpose these "protections" are for and why. Every investment ad brokerage firm I have seen, plus leveraged and inverse funds I researched are CLEAR that INVESTMENT INVOLVED RISK. Hammurabi said it best in the 1st recorded ancient law: Let the buyer beware. Requiring me to provide much more financial data to my broker or advisor to see if I "qualify" to use leveraged or inverse funds sounds more like approving for me to use margin. I did not have to provide more financial data to be approved for options trading. Leveraged and inverse funds do not require me as a buyer to pay any more than the individual ETF share price, the same as buying Target (TGT), Apple (AAPL), IBM, etc. individual share price or use margin to purchase. If I only buy the leveraged or inverse ETFs with money already in my brokerage account and do use margin, then these proposed regulations are unnecessary, burdensome to the investor, brokerage firms and ultimately to the leveraged and inverse ETF makers. The "need" to give in depth financial information to my broker/ advisor is more of an invasion of privacy tan protection. I suspect most investors will not be willing to divulge their personal financial information, with the end result of the ETFs being shut down due to lower demand because of the regulations and tipping the investment balance more to those who want use margin or to large brokerage houses with access cheap credit. Leveraged and inverse funds are important to me as they allow me to enhance my returns and protect or increase my portfolio. I understand the risks in using them and it should be the individual investor's responsibility to count the risk/ reward of sing them, NOT the government's. I want to preserve the longstanding precedent of free market policies where investors and, if they choose, their advisors can make decision without new undue burdensome regulations. This also aligns with the President's, as Chief of the Executive Branch, policy of DE-REGULATION. I would comment more but the website to input my comments is VERY slow. Recommend fixing that.