June 3, 2016
We've been reading the interesting public accounts of the time and money spent by the HFTers (not to mention the existing public stock exchanges), to lobby your agency and other concerned government officials, to prevent IEX from becoming a public exchange. Here's an example of an honest competitor introducing into the U. S stock market promising innovation which will benefit not only investors in that market but the entire U.S. economy. Is that innovation at the expense of high frequency traders and the existing public stock exchanges? We think not. The market is a mess with the predatory trading of the HFTers. IEX represents a proven solution to protect investors from that mess. Of further benefit, if IEX is allowed to become a public exchange, is, not only a new spirit of fairness in the market place, but also a continued reduction of the the tax levied by Wall Street intermediaries on U.S. stock market investors.
We would urge those U.S. government authorities whose task it is to supervise the U.S. stock market, to quickly move and enable IEX to become a public exchange. Sincerely, Peter Lawrence Boatman