Feb. 24, 2023
February 24, 2023 Please charitable with my comments and those of my fellow household traders. Also consider the weight of our numbers despite the bystander effect and despite the perception of the household investor community that the SEC is ineffective. Our interaction with the market now is because of the extent to which the status quo is not serving our interests, or is working against us Execution of trades should facilitate price discovery. Market makers fulfilling trades via a combination of short-selling, PFOF, internalisation, off-exchange trading etc inhibits price discovery. Additionally, conflicts of interest between broker-dealers and their off-shoot hedge-funds may demand prices stay within certain ranges to not conflict with their margins, which is at odds with their duties. Yet this is the status quo. Rules that limit the ability for these systems to be abused are more necessary than ever. The SEC should do everything in its power to ensure best execution, to exclude the possibility of conflict of interest by broker-dealers, and to prohibit middlemen profiting from transactions by household investors. Internalisation of trades via those various mechanisms, in effect, inserts broker-dealers or clearing houses as middle-men in those transactions, or worse creates a fictional seller by selling short a share from an anonymous lender to be later purchased if/when prices are more suitable. This makes a mockery of price discovery. How trades are executed affects prices. This information should be sought as a matter of course.