February 7, 2022
Le that it is very disappointing that one needs to lobby to get the SEC to act against fraud in the stock market.
The ability for market makers, hedge funds, and banks to manipulate the stock market has gotten completely out of hand. Since the mid 90s, 100% of the growth of the stock market has come during after hours trading, off of the lit markets, blocking retail traders from participating in these trades and denying them their right to a fair market. This needs to be changed as soon as possible. ALL trading in the stock exchange needs to happen in the lit exchanges in order for the markets to have integrity. The markets have no integrity now, as the DTCC has been allowed to 'police' themselves to the tune of crashing the stock market in 2008 and helping lead to the stock market crash we are about to see.
The DTCC needs oversight and members of the DTCC need to admit fault when they break the law and steal money from citizens of the rest of the world. The SEC needs to levy realistic fines that may start to deter this behavior. There are countless examples of hedge funds and banks breaking the law in order to make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.. leading to fines in the thousands of dollars and for these institutions to admit no fault.
This is wholly and totally unacceptable. The SEC is not protecting our fair markets by imposing punishments that don't match the crimes. This needs to change in order to protect the integrity of our markets and to curb this fraud by major institutions.
The SEC has aided these crimes at every turn. Last year dozens of brokers and institutions colluded to turn off the 'buy' button for certain stocks for retail traders. This was done because those institutions were going to go under and crash the stock market along with them. The SEC took no action to stop this. The SEC took no action to protect retail investors. The SEC did everything in their power to sweep this incident under the rug and hold no one accountable. It is clear that the SEC is more concerned with protecting the billionaires of this country versus doing their job and ensuring fair markets.
It should be against the law for people like Janet Yellen to make money from 'speaking fees' by major institutions, banks, brokers. This is a disgusting practice here in the United States. This woman makes 10x her yearly salary paid for by the institutions she is supposed to be regulating. This needs to change right away.
Lastly, our stock market needs to go on the blockchain so that we can ensure in perpetuity that naked short selling never happens again. Organizations like Citadel should not be able to be a market maker and a broker. This contributes to our broken system. However, and more importantly, these institutions should not be allowed naked short sell stocks. This has put countless companies out of business based on fraud. Naked short selling needs to be illegal. It needs to be regulated. Punishments need to fit the crimes as well.
If an organization breaks the law and profits from this. The punishment needs to be that ALL profits that came from this need to be forfeited and a heavy fine needs to be levied on top of it. Until this happens nothing will change in the stock market.
Retail investors shouldn't need to come here to lobby to the SEC that they do their job. This proposed rule change would help enforce free and fair markets. There need not be any debate, this is what the job of the SEC is. It's extremely disappointing that the SEC needs to propose a role change in order to stop fraud. This is an embarrassment as the rest of the world looks on watching our markets waiting for them to crash.