Mar. 12, 2023
As an individual investor who has substantial assets invested in equity markets in the US, I completely support the order competition rule. At its core, it ensures a public and free market to compete for order execution. I find the commentary on this issue from market participants who have received multiple fines for violating SEC rules to be self-serving and deserving of dismissal of consideration by the SEC as the equivalent of criminals decrying laws of Justice. A broker routing orders first to a wholesaler, who then passes them to the auction, which might route it back to the wholesaler, seems unnecessarily complex and also grants the wholesaler a profound information advantage against other market participants: they get to see orders well before anyone else. The Commission should address this unfair information advantage by having brokers first route to the auction and specify where the order should go if the auction is unsuccessful. That way the entire market has equal knowledge. The current market is obviously not fair and this proposed rule is an important step in that direction. Fair competition is incredibly important and it’s good to see the SEC prioritizing true competition.