May 5, 2009
I wish for the SEC to utilize a market wide, permanent aproach to the uptick rule. I further believe that the uptick rule should be based on a market wide short sale price test based not only on the last sale price, or tick, but to prevent computerized manipulation by creating an instantaneous uptick, the upward price trend of a security must be maintained for a reasonable time period, say 30 seconds to one minute.
For example ... if the objective of a trader is to manipulate a security price down, that trader could potentially bid up the price of a security by buying a small number of shares, causing the price to tick up. That trade could then be instantaneously followed by a large short trade.
Small retail investors such as myself have been materially damaged by professional market manipulators during the past year. A strong uptick rule needs to be in place.
In addition, market manipulating ETF's such as the Ultra Short Pro Shares should be banned.