February 7, 2022
As a retail investor, I am saddened and disturbed by the fact that there is an incredible level of 'obvious' fraud within our markets, relating to trading securities. There exists an unfair playing field for retail investors in particular when viewing us against larger market participants that trade in dark pools. As stated by Gary Gensler, most of the market is traded in dark pools, where dark pool participants may trade obscene levels of volume via naked short selling, and hide data. Naked short selling should not be allowed, period. Put simply, it is a form counterfeiting, but counterfeiting that is predatory as it can destroy companies through antagonistic short selling for personal gain. I assume this is well-known by the SEC at this point, but I feel that it is worth commenting on to show the retail investor's perspective. I appreciate that this proposal would help make our markets more transparent. I hope that it does.