Subject: File No. S7-25-99
From: John R Boyd, CFP
Affiliation: Registered Investment Adviser, FPA

August 25, 2004

Proposed Rule: Certain Broker-Dealers Deemed Not To Be Investment Advisers

The proposed rule would continue to perpetuate the false and misleading representation that the investment advice giving by registered representatives is somehow different than the advice given by Financial Planners or independent Registered Investment Advisers. The broker-dealer community should be required to clearly disclose the role in which a particular representative is acting so that it can be clearly understood by the public. If that role is that of an Investment Adviser, then the same fiduciary standards should apply to the exercise of that role as it would for an independent investment adviser. There is certainly no evidence that because of the affiliation with a broker-dealer that representatives have in the past or would in the future act in the best interest of the investing public unless compelled to by regulation and threat of legal recourse.