June 22, 2011
Yet again the investing public has to hope that the SEC's top officials will do more than pay mere lip service to safeguarding a level playing field for the investing public. Since it is YOUR ACTIONS THAT will SPEAK VOLUMES it's time that the SEC start to WALK THE TALK.
The SEC must do something about its bias towards protecting the 'confidentiality' of short sellers both 'legitimate' and especially otherwise. The SEC should provide for transparent trading data both long and short on a trade by trade basis. Where's the level playing field in transparency and information dissemination that should be expected by non-preofessional participants in the market regarding short sales ? As for FTDs, those involved in perpetuating FTDs should be punished harshly both the perpetrators and their aiders and abettors.
Why is it that the institutional quarterly reports can be as much as 135 days out of date by the time they are reported 45 days after a quarter ends ? Why not have reports delayed by only a week at most if the farcical argument of protecting trading strategies is to be introduced into the mix ? All institutional positions should disclose both long and especially short positions.
And the 2 week lags in reporting timely short interest data is unacceptable. In this day and age there's no reason it can't be updated and reported nightly.
Just to reiterate, it's about time that the SEC start to WALK THE TALK as regards its duty to safeguarding the markets from short selling hedge funds and the manipulations that are inherent to their strategies.
Signed
A cynical 'investor'.