Jun. 07, 2022
To whom it may concern, I do not support the petition, File Number: 4-785, which proposes to remove #AMC & #GME from dark pools for 14 days. The main issue I have is that this doesn't change anything. Off-exchange trades are the real issue where trades are internalized by brokers and never actually executed, having no buying pressure on the underlying stock. Brokers give you an IOU or a phantom share of stock and when you sell they give you whatever the value of the current stock is. My brokerage account will show 1 share but it's not actually there. Therefore I never actually own a share of a company and when I sell, market makers (i.e. Citadel) have the option of shorting the stock to give you the cash. Therefore my trades as a retail investor only exert sell pressure. That does not sound like a fair and free market to me! It seems this rule is made to sound like the SEC is taking initiative in its duty to the American public when in actuality it accomplishes nothing. Sincerely, T. Conor Evans