October 28, 2009
Flash orders, dark pools and anything that gives professional investors an edge over other investors, especially individual investors should be banned. After revelations over the past year of how corrupt and unfair the capital markets have become, the SEC should have shut down all the stock markets. As naive as it seems, as long-term investors($700K plus), with Ivy League business degree and 2 decades in finance, my husband and I suspected flash orders and dark pools long before it was brought to the public's attention. To use the guise of liquidity is appalling. The SEC is bowing to all the demands of Wall Street instead of doing its job and protecting those it was supposed to protect, ie the individual investor. The SEC seems to have lost all control of function and is overwhelmed. Now is the time to create a level playing field that the advent of the internet was supposed to help create. How long are we going to be manipulated by mathematical formulas until we realize that the capital markets have collapsed because there are no longer any "suckers" on the other side? Investing in the stock market is no longer investing. The SEC has to start doing what is was mandated to do, stand up for investors' rights and not give into the lobbying efforts and demands of Wall Street. If the SEC does not reclaim its territory, it will become obsolete since there will be no capital markets to protect.