January 29, 2016
I would like to ask the SEC to allow IEX to be granted status as a National Securities Exchange. I speak on behalf of the millions of Americans who are powerless to prevent economic interests of incumbents from doing the right thing for the 99% of Americans who end up being the ones who pay for the inefficiencies in our large 'too big to fail' systems. The public statements issued by the incumbent exchanges clearly indicate the collusion of the industry to prevent upstarts from upsetting the 'apple-cart.' The arguments that they make around the addition of intentional delays by IEX preventing 'fair' trades is as ludicrous then as the opposite practices of the incumbent exchanges in allowing co-location to decrease intrinsic communication delays creating a disadvantage to other participants in other geographies who can't afford to pay for privileged access. If the SEC is to regulate one, then it should regulate the other also and if they choose not to regulate one then the other should be allowed to level the playing field.
I would also like to suggest that the policy makers in these issues should be those that do not have an economic interest or other strong social connections to those parties in these industries. You should bring in disinterested parties to preserve true fairness in policy and the prevention of even unintentional bias.
Thx,
Pramod John
CEO, Oration PBC