Mar. 24, 2023
March 24, 2023 Its important to remember that rules full of loopholes for parties that have conflicts of interest are not real rules. These entities and especially market makers, have a huge power to move the market against the regular hardworking Americans invested in the stock market, through their lifes savings. Price discovery as a concept in paper, emphasizing the free market structure of the US financial market, is a wash at the influence of the powerful monopoly of market makers. I 100% ask that SEC reject the exception and as a regulator protect and serve the people they are appointed to serve. Accepting conflicts of interest in the name of liquidity or in its entirety is a free pass and a dangerous measure to undermine the very requirements that the Act placed on the markets to prevent from the domination of market making. As of 2023, the markets are severely dominated by the very same entities these passes go to and apply to. For instance, Citadel Securities operating as a hedge fund w hich have their concurrent market making entities, has an investor base of around 20 parties at the expense of severe shorting from payment for order flow and other data that they have manipulated. What is scarier is how the SEC has time and again turned a blind eye. Yet, the very same entity has posted record profits for 2022 when the markets were in severe impact from the aftermath of COVID-19 and an irresponsible pumping to bring confidence into a market. If the exceptions are implemented its all the more clear that SEC that otherwise false fully by all accounts prides itself on the strengths of price discovery, is siding again with the interest of billionaire entities instead of protecting the markets from manipulation and domination. Its tiring, time and again, to see the SEC not do their job as regulators and this will be an important point in their trajectory forward on whose interests they protect. I urge you to reject these exceptions.