September 13, 2011
My comment would be to turn over regulation to another agency..perhaps FBI for enforcement actions and just let them deal with the Madoff's of the world.
Your agency doesn't really regulate markets for the safety of individual or pension fund investors. You create only regulations that benefit large bank/hedge funds and their high frequency trading algorithms.
Markets no longer work the way that your agency attempts to regulate. Your demands on reporting companies are overbearing and expensive for them and your markets don't even use the information that you allow companies to report.
70-80% of the trading takes place regardless of what reporting companies are doing..fundamental financial statements and footnotes that you obsess over aren't even used. All the algorithms trade based on technicals, are all geared around short selling(so they don't have to use real money), and have the market volatility and volume driven by planted financial media stories daily....none of which you do anything about.
You don't have the computer power possessed by those who control markets, I doubt you even have the ability to know who is controlling markets, you are like the police and don't have the ability to catch the real criminals while they are operating only after crimes have been done, you don't have the ability to prevent flash crashes which can occur at any time, you don't require large investors to report short positions (which if you add them up represent one of the largest "bubbles" and risks to our countries financial markets), I rather doubt that you are really an independent govt agency because of your relationships with some of the largest broker dealer now bank entities.
You really believe that removing uptick, allowing 100 share trading lots, dark pools, front-running transactions, no transaction costs and even rebates, millisecond placing and canceling of orders to rig bid/ask prices, credit default swaps, offshore hedge funds, offshore trading platforms etc are good for our markets because they provide "liquidity". You not only allow the traders to do these things but provide them with the "regulations" to allow it to happen.
Our markets have crashed and will crash again and you will let us know after you do public commentary periods, have panel discussions with all the largest known trading platforms that made it happen and allow totaling false financial medial stories to be placed daily or hourly while you sit and read footnotes and regulate the actual reporting companies and their ceo's .
You should be asking for public comment about "why your agency exists and for whose benefit" and you should be ignoring comment from the firms that you allow to destroy "markets"
I really do believe that your ability to help regulate these global markets is very limited...doubt you have the technology, manpower or even the jurisdiction(most of the wrongs are going to be done in countries other than the US) to regulate these "markets".
Perhaps as our country struggles with the concepts of cutting govt spending, each agency will be required to define what their function is and prove that they are doing what is required for the public safety of this nation and that the agency actually has the ability to do just that.