Jan. 30, 2024
To Whom it May Concern: I am writing as a very concerned retail investor about the proposed rules to adjust parameters by the Options Clearing Corporation for calculating margin requirements during periods of high volatility. I DO NOT SUPPORT these changes. I wish to state that I am NOT an economist, I never took one economics class in college. All of the knowledge I have gained about our financial system and stock market comes from independent research over the past 2 years since electing to become more of an active investor. However, I do realize that like our medical system, our economic system is a very insular, encapsulated system of which, the average person only has a minimal comprehension. It has its own vernacular and jargon and I feel it is a fair statement that the majority of people don’t worry about it as long as there is nothing catastrophic that affects them. We count on those more knowledgeable than us to steer us right. We count on those more knowledgeable than us to make sure that these systems are operating REASONABLY for the benefit of the greater good. But when the principal regulatory function of the SEC is being weakened by these bad actors who seek to protect themselves from the bad investments they made, we end up with a potentially analogous situation to 2008 when banks kept issuing garbage mortgaged backed securities based on terrible FICO scores. We’ve eliminated the Glass-Steagall act providing NO firewall security of the average person’s investments from these bad bets. The solution here is a simple one. If hedge funds are too big to fail, then they are too big. At the very least, they need to be kept in check by MORE regulatory oversight not less. Weakening this apparatus only serves to lead us to another situation where federal tax monies will be forced to bail out these bad actors who grease certain politicians to further their agenda. We need to make certain that if hedge funds and others are going to make wild, reckless bets on the direction of companies through aggressive shorting, cellar boxing and other illegal tactics that they, and ONLY THEY are the one’s to pay the heavy price for failure, not nurses, not pensioners, and certainly not anyone who’s done nothing else in their life to try and make it just a bit easier. I ask that you embrace your role as public watchdog and strengthen these requirements, not weaken them. Thank you Anonymous Sent from Mail for Windows