Aug. 13, 2021
Dear SEC Rule makers and enforcement officers. I am new to securities trading and overall stock investing. In fact, my position ration is 99.9% AMC Entertainment and that was the very first stock I ever purchased. I do not believe my overall throughs are confirmation bias because I naturally tied in data from occurrences and scenarios applicable to the one, I have interest in. However, I strongly believe that there are unfair trading practices being deployed by Insiders, Organizations which hold a clear conflict of interest as a Hedge fund, Market Maker, and run a non-registered Dark Pools they label as internalizes, which allows for un-bridled manipulations of stocks they have interest in short or long. As such – a free market should not allow an organization the freedom to be able to endlessly the short stock while being able to direct & fill the orders. My wife is a booker keeper and trust manager for an Accounts Receivable Management (Collections Company.) They have 24 bank accounts and have to true up, to the penny, ever dollar in and out daily. Thye are audited constantly by internal and external controls. If there is even a small discrepancy – the company would be shut down by the regulators that are put in place for Consumer Protection and or walked out in handcuffs for misappropriation of funds, fraudulent conveyance of funds, wire fraud, laundering, conspiracy etc. With that said – here are some items I believe hold bearing to my opinion. Hedge Funds should have to close out their FTD’s by T+35 or be prevented from #NakedShorting as per Rule (204(b). Fines for non-compliance should be higher, and more swiftly. Naked Shorting itself should not be permitted, whatsoever, as its an illegal form of executing trades. It is becoming more prevalent and clearer that Stocks like AMC Ent Holdg have more stock in circulation that Shares Out. I would venture to guess that #Nakedshorting, #DarkPoolAbuse, and #Syntheticshares have flooded our market via abusive short attacks that suppress any organic movement of whatever security it’s against. Dark Pool Price Suppression has contributed to an average of 65% + of daily trades in stocks like $AMC. Orders routed to dark pool creates blind spots and unfair conditions for all trading participants of a stock such as hiding bid/ask data, and or if trades are delayed, front ran against, etc. Form T trades appear in time and sales data pre-market and afterhours each day. If trades are being delayed, rampant payment for order flow across platforms identifying retail buys as ODD lot so Pricing Algos fail to identify try buying pressure Odd Lot Trades bundled together and executed during a time which the corresponding price impact is suppressed, this is a violation and market manipulation at its core. Many insiders, and former market makers, have already corroborated this thesis and admitted to its impact on stocks. This accompanied with High Frequency algorithmic price manipulation are enough to prove unfair and criminal suppression of fair markets. Moreover, by allowing organizations like Citadel the ongoing use of its Citadel Connect platform which, by my knowledge, may not be required or worse yet, not enforced to report its true trading volume to FINRA. Citadel Connect which is classified as an Electronic Automated Trading Center under Regulation NMS 17 CFR 242.600. should be more scrutinized and required to report under FINRA Reporting Rules Series 6000 and NMS 600-605. If they are only reporting trade data accessible in aggregate form, detailed summaries must be demanded, audited, validated for compliance, and made public. Short Interest data does not appear accurate based on the number of shares sold short each day which by some very qualified statisticians, are estimated to be in the billions in the case of AMC Entertainment. 100% of short interest data – including shares that may be known or estimated should be made freely public to investor and in real time. Advancements in blockchain technology would provide capabilities seamlessly verifying transactions, counts, actions, and holdings by the exchanges, market makers, recipients and otherwise. Short Exempt Trading below uptick should not be allowed. ISO sweep trades across exchanges should not be allowed either. This creates and environment for price suppression by market makers. A free and fair market is what is promoted. However, price movements are nowhere near natural. When daily order flow is averaging 3-1 up to 7-1 Buys vs. sells for AMC the supply and demand theory should dictate the price is going up. If more people want to buy than sell – Pay more. If the supply is limited and or there is no more actual supply – The owner can charge more due to scarcity. It’s a simple concept that has been bastardized and created a complex maze of self-regulated organizations not held accountable. We want common sense rules and reform that will allow organic, natural and fair price movement. We want to pay the fair market price, the “ask”. We want orders executed in the time they placed and not routed to fill for a lower price shopped by market makers. We want short sellers to play by the rules that were set in place and not make their own not limited to the printing more, and more shares to sell into the market simulating sell offs, naked shorting that creates false selling pressure, delivering on their Failure to delivers instead of kicking the can down the road. Please take these points into consideration and forgive me if some of the nomenclature is off. I started trading stocks in March-2021 and even I know the system is rigged. If you want proof – there are Millions of highly qualified, highly educated, and/or highly motivated #AMCApes who will be happy to walk you through it because #Apesnotleave. If you need a place to get started, check your twitter accounts @SECGov @SEC_Enforcement and @GaryGensler. Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to your reply.Thanks & Best Regards,
Joe Falletti Vice President Operations