Jun. 07, 2022
Good morning, Upon further research I have come to understand that this proposal does not actually address the issue, as the main issue is wholesalers internalizing trades, or executing trades off-exchange, rather than sending the trades to dark pools. This speaks to larger issues with how our markets currently operate. The current system is so convoluted with alternative trading systems that prevent price discovery that retail investors can not do the research that the SEC itself says retail investors should be doing when purchasing securities. There is limited data, which is provided well after the data is relevant, and much of the data is self reported. It is my understanding that the week of January 28th 2021, citadel and virtu each internalized approximately 5 billion worth of buy orders per day. This means they pocketed more than the current market cap of the company in just a few days, reloaded their short positions, and then used that money to slam the price down profiting themselves further. The manipulation has been ongoing for sixteen months. Please stand up for retail investors. It’s literally one of your main charters. Thank you, Andrew On Jun 6, 2022, at 11:35 PM, Andrew Gatley wrote: Good evening, I am a retail investor that has been invested in gamestop (GME) since before the january 2021 short squeeze. I have followed gamestop's story daily since december of 2020. I would like to express my whole-hearted support for this proposal. The number of reasons are too long to list, so let me try to just give you two single bullets. Per the SEC - I understand that market manipulation is illegal/ Per Gary Gensler interview - 90-95% of retail orders go straight to dark pools. I believe that price discovery of GME has been illegally manipulated using dark pools, ATS's, options, swaps, and spoofing. I believe there is a mountain of evidence to support this belief, and the SEC has not only been negligent in it's duties but complicit in these ongoing activities. I believe a 2-week (minimum) band on dark pool/ATS trading of GME and AMC will prove that these systems are being used to manipulate price discovery. The intended purpose of ATS's, as I understand it, is to allow for large block trades to not impact the price of a security. There is vast amounts of evidence that suggests these systems are being used to actively suppress price discovery, making me question the integrity of our markets, and the integrity of our regulators. If ATS's are not being used to manipulate the price then there would be no reason not to enact this rule, as no impact would be felt on the market. If they are being used to manipulate the price, it will be a helpful tool for the SEC and the DOJ to understand the depths and mechanics of the issues at hand. I thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Andrew