Apr. 20, 2022
As a retail investor from Europe I am highly disappointed by what is proposed in this new rule that would literally allow for FTDs, which currently is illegal to force, to continue and worsen, which can be abused by market makers and used in conjunction with illegal naked short selling and unfair dark pool trade routing to control and suppress the price of certain securities. This is unfair and it goes against the basis of our free market. Do not allow SFTs (Security Financial Transactions) proposed in this rule, to create new loopholes to be allowed, whereby the very real financial obligations of the FTDs get passed along instead of settled. I can see how it provides stability at the moment, but it is not my fault that, due to unfortunate decisions from certain participants, this has to be implemented. Also this could allow in the future abusive practices where market makers are never accountable for their failings. This is unacceptable and creates an opportunity to harm the retail investor and it violates our rights for a free and fair market. The manipulation that certain players are willingly making needs to stop. Please remove this proposed rule and furthermore please do not try to propose something similar again in the future, as iterations of this have been rejected in the past and continue to be rejected by educated investors every time they resurface. If it has been refused in the past you should stop trying to sneak this "rule" (I would call it crime) by trying to pass it as many times as you could. It supposes a big waste of our time. The mission of the SEC is to make sure the rules are being followed, so I would propose that you direct your attention to doing so. One worthy target for your attention would be to ban the use of dark pools (which were meant to be used in exceptional occasions) by market makers such as Citadel which has been used to suppress price discovery of securities traded by retail investors. Thank you in advance for your time and attention to this matter, and please live up to your obligations and help the investors from predatory behavior by financial institutions. Sincerely, Carlos Galán from Spain.