April 23, 2009
This is my second comment, I did one a few minutes ago.
Rather than mess with price discovery by inhibiting shorts, can we just force 401k custodians to give people a trailing stop election?
That way they can choose their own circuit breaker level.
If we had just done this, a nation of baby boomers wouldn't be facing the prospect of retirement with much less money than they planned upon. They could be retiring on time, and making vacancies for the next generation. By their sheer number, this should have prevented a long term unemployment crunch, as the most populous generation left behind more vacancies than GenX could fill...
It is silly that the allegedly "safe" investment for retirement, the mutual fund based 401k, does not have the basic protective tools of the typical brokerage account.
We created a nation of obligate investors when we started getting rid of tradition pensions and started the 401k. We ask the masses to take on the risks. Give them the tools too.
That was my last comment...I promise.