Apr. 20, 2022
Hello. My name is Patrick Reynolds, and I, like many other millions of people, do my best to save and invest at the retail level to safeguard my financial future. From what I as a layperson can understand, (the dense legalese of these is a huge barrier for the average citizen), SR-NSCC-2022-003 offers bad actors a way to get out of bad bets and strategic Fail to Delivers. It's an open secret that abusive naked short selling is rife on Wall Street, and this new rule with its "SFTs" would allow financial institutions to continue this practice with even less risk than they have now. If I failed to deliver my car or mortgage payment, I would pay dearly for that negligence. But large institutions get away with it every day, and this new bill only makes it easier for them. Trust in the market is at an all time low, and the attempts to sneak through these types of "get out of jail free" legislation erodes it further. My grandfather taught me how to research and follow different stocks, looking at the paper listings in the newspaper. Sadly, I do not feel confident teaching my daughter the same thing, because of how little faith I have in true price discovery with bills like SR-NSCC-2022-003 in the mix. I urge you to withdraw this proposal and do the bare minimum to keep what fairness remains in the markets. Patrick Reynolds