Oct. 26, 2022
Dear SEC, I am writing to you today as I am actively participating in your so-called "free and fair" stock market. I had always suspected that the markets were somewhat slanted to the big players as they have more capital to drive up or down pricing. But the last 2 years has demonstrated this goes much deeper than I had previously believed, and borders on criminal and fraudulent behaviour. The market is at risk of going up in smoke, and you as the body tasked with ensuring its regulated need to act now: 1. It should be impossible for a stock to be sold short more than 100%; the mere fact that it can shows that certain institutions are either not policing it correctly, OR allowing it to occur. 2. Payment for order-flow and internalisation need to be scrapped; how can it be a free and fair market when there are markets WITHIN markets... 3. Fines need to be restructured, when well known firms are REPEATEDLY fined for the same behaviour the fines need to be increased, otherwise their goal (of being a deterant) is not being realised. The definition of accountability is to ensure the offending party doesn't repeat their misdeeds, this is OBVIOUSLY not happening. 4. Short reporting needs to be included in 13F's and 13F's need to be more frequent; we are in the age of big data, lets make use of it. 5. DMM's should not be allowed to be affiliated with trading entities, otherwise how do you resolve the conflict of interest? 6. Public officials should NOT be allowed to place bets on the outcome of the policies that they are governing; If it's illegal in sport, why is it legal in government? I suggest you make changes rapidly, otherwise your market will be reduced to big players, and retail investors will develop their own systems - aka what's happening with FIAT and cryptocurrency will happen with the stock market - because people become disillusioned with the scam and take their money else where... Regards David