Feb. 7, 2024
I am deeply concerned with the rule proposal (SR-OCC-2024-001-34-99393) that adjusts the margin requirements for entities that are heavily involved in the stock market. From the perspective of an ordinary retail investor like me, the OCC’s proposal does not consider the retail investor in their plans at all, in fact they do not even want to listen to comments or opinions from retail at all. Any rule proposal that affects retail and institutional investors alike should have its contents accessible to every involved party, but this is not the case as the proposal and relevant documents provided by the OCC have information censored. This prevents ordinary people from seeing the proposal in its entirety to help us make smart decisions. I believe that any proposal that hides anything in its entirety must be denied, based on the simple premise that one should not hide anything if they believe they are in the right side of things. The market is what the SROs made it to be, retail did not have any say on how we should participate in the market other than what we can do with our brokerages and providing our comments and opinions through channels such as this. I believe that we must observe accountability and foster responsibility once again, like that adage that says, “You broke it, you buy it”. Therefore, institutions must be held accountable for the losing trades they executed (i.e., short selling, overleveraging, etc). The rule proposal that the OCC is pushing stands to benefit the financial institutions who are betting money on toxic assets, that retail is intelligent enough to bet against. Approving the OCC’s rule proposal means that financial firms will get the bailout once again, just like how the events in the years 2008 and 2020-2021 have shown this. I implore you, to please look out for the ordinary retail investor this time. America is built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the lower and middle class. Please restore the SEC’s credibility and the faith of the American people to its regulatory institutions and reject this rule proposal. Respectfully, A concerned retail investor