February 22, 2010
To the Chairman and Members of the SEC.
I am an individual investor. My primary holdings are in Apple Computer Shares. Apple is a favorite short sale target for Hedgefunds and large Traders. I implore you to not put in a circuit breaker approach that allows stocks like AAPL to be shorted down over $20 per share before any rule is invoked. This would allow Market Manipulation to continue, since most regular investors would be stopped out by any concerted short seliing attack. Please give us a rule that really accomplshes something. I believe your mandate is to provide a level playing field, not to insure Hedgefund Operations will not be inconvienced. If the Markets and our Ecoonomy is going to fully recover, the longer term investor must regain trust in a Stock Market that reacts to Fundamentals and not Manipulation. Please give us an Up-tick rule that truly works, and require a hard hold and delivery on all stocks borrowed for short sales. We are counting on you