Jun. 7, 2022
Dear SEC and Mr Gensler, As a UK-based investor in the US markets, I am sorry to report a severe downturn in confidence in US markets. My research over the past 5 years has taught me that a number of policies and practices are common in the US which are banned elsewhere around the world for introducing conflicts of interest. There are so many ways for large US market participants to cheat, steal, and commit fraud, no transparency, and the SEC is powerless in comparison to other agencies around the world in their home countries. Dark pools are one such failure. A child can see that dark pools offer multiple avenues for stock price manipulation and obligation avoidance (can kicking). A stock market should reflect the collective sentiment of all participants. Therefore, all trades should go through a public market, with one exception - Contactual fulfillment, such as index rebalancing. Currently, dark pools are being abused far beyond their original design for small, frequent trades in individual stocks rather than large bulk trades, and they provide obfuscation which allows trading to occur between prohibited parties. I strongly recommend for this rule to block GME on all dark pools, and wish it were made permanent. Further, I strongly recommend the SEC look to abolish the concept of dark pools entirely, or short of that, limit it to large, contractually obligated exchanges only. The SEC should also ban PFOF and market maker internalisation as well, as these are both conflicts of interest, and avenues to undetectable fraud. Sincerely Mr B. Knight