Statement on Proposal to Require Short Position and Short Activity Reporting by Institutional Investment Managers

Section 929X of the Dodd-Frank Act requires the Commission to adopt rules providing for the public disclosure of short sale information. Today’s proposal would establish a framework for doing this on an aggregate basis for institutional investment managers with gross short positions in certain equity securities that exceed certain thresholds. It also would make related amendments to Regulation SHO and to the National Market System Plan for the Consolidated Audit Trail. I support the proposal, which responds to a statutory directive and, if adopted, should help to provide needed transparency around short interest.

I look forward to public comment on the proposed framework. In particular, the new rules would require significant amounts of disclosure, including the monthly reporting of gross short positions at the end of each month and of daily activity affecting those positions. I am interested in hearing from commenters whether these disclosure obligations are appropriate in light of the transparency objectives of Section 929X and the proposed rule and how they may affect trading strategies and market making activity in our markets.

The Commission also has determined to reopen the comment period on Exchange Act Rule 10c-1, which was proposed in November 2021 and would require reporting of securities lending transactions. I hope that commenters will take this opportunity to provide their views on whether and how the Commission’s proposal approved today may affect the requirements imposed by proposed Rule 10c-1.

In closing, I would like to thank the staff in the Division of Trading and Markets and in the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis for the time they spent with my staff and me over the last few weeks and for the many months of hard work that went into today’s proposal.