Apr. 24, 2022
To the Securities and Exchange Commission, As a retail investor I am quite startled by the content of this new proposed rule (SR-NSCC-2022-003) that would effectively allow for FTDs (Failure To Deliver) to continue and worsen, which can be abused by market makers and used in conjunction with illegal naked shorting and abusive dark pool trade routing to control and suppress the price on securities trading. I am deeply ashamed to be a willful participant in these markets, and cannot believe this perversion of our markets is so openly proposed and discussed, it’s as though retail investors are seen as uneducated and insignificant members of our markets; as one myself, I assure you this is not the case. We may not all send these messages to you, but rest assured millions are watching, both within our country and from abroad. If you wish to remediate the troubled health of our markets and the goodwill of investors across the globe, I encourage you to read this and other comments carefully. This proposal does not in any way benefit investors, institutional, retail or otherwise, and in fact could be extremely harmful, which is the precise opposite of the stated purpose of the SECs very existence. I am ashamed that our regulatory bodies are presenting themselves in such a boldly complicit manner. Please do not allow SFTs (Security Financial Transactions) proposed in this rule, to create new and potentially endless layers of can-kicking to be allowed, whereby the very real financial obligations of the FTDs get passed along instead of settled - doing so will all but ensure the inevitable implosion of our markets domestically and abroad. I can see how it provides stability in the moment, but it also allows for abusive practices where market makers are never accountable for their failings, which is wholly unacceptable to all but theses entitled entities alone. This is not acceptable and creates an opportunity to harm retail investors and it violates our rights for a free and fair market. The manipulation needs to come to an end. Please remove this proposed rule and furthermore please do not try to propose something similar again in the future, as iterations of this have been rejected in the past and continue to be rejected by educated investors every time they resurface. What a colossal waste of time, mine and yours, to continue to have to repeat this song and dance over and over again. I pay my taxes to the institution we call the government of the United States of America, and I am ashamed of what this proposal puts forward. Those leaders that brought us said market structure before us would be ashamed of the constant and continued perversion of justice in our markets, and let it be known that the population is waking up to the reality of this sick duality. The mission of the SEC is to look out for the well-being of investors such as myself, so I would propose that you direct your attention to doing so; this must be both transparent and in good faith. This would best be accomplished by banning Payment For Order Flow which is inherently harmful to retail investors and which unfairly benefits Market Makers and brokers who do not have investors best interest in mind. Another worthy target for your attention would be to shut down the abusive use of dark pools by market makers such as Citadel which has been used to undermine the true value of securities traded by retail investors and to suppress price discovery. Please review the GameStop (NYSE: GME) history since January 2021, along with so many others in the so called “meme basket, please look into the over leveraged ETFs being used to manipulate our markets. I only wish for this not to fall again on deaf ears. Thank you in advance for your timely attention to this matter, and please live up to your obligations and help the investors from predatory behavior by financial institutions. Sincerely, Bryan Sicard