Apr. 01, 2023
Dear SEC officials Payment for order flow (PFOF) has been banned in the EU and in many countries around the world. And with good reason. It is more than obvious that PFOF creates massive conflicts of interest that are detrimental to order execution quality for retail investors. Hence retail investors that buy and sell in brokers using PFOF get worse order execution quality, in violation with the best execution guidance of FINRA. Despite this PFOF is currently still allowed in the US. In general, in-transparency and opaque market structures in which brokers, market makes and other parties deal in Alternative Trading Systems amongst themselves are a huge problem in the current US market. For this reason I fully support the new order competition rule as it would foster competition and increase transparency to the benefit of retail investors. Best regards, Patrick S.