December 14, 2015
To the SEC:
I have invested in the market as an individual for a while now and am living off the proceeds. The fact that there are people who gain access to my trading activities and are able to act upon them, is objectionable at the start. The mission of the SEC is to maintain a level playing field for all investors. We smaller investors need your protection from latency arbitrage. We don't ask that these speed enabled trades be eliminated, but that be required to compete for my business with a non speed trader accessed platform. The existence of these intermediaries is only tolerable if individual investors have the ability to use exchanges that are not so enabled and compare our results. We would then 'vote with our feet' in the finest marketplace tradition. So if the latency arbitragers are only really creating liquidity then I and others like me should see no difference. All we ask is that the SEC fulfills it's charter and allows for a rebalancing of the playing field. To this end IEX will require the SEC to approve it's application to become an Exchange with a protected quotation. Thanks you for your time.