April 20, 2022
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please find below my comment on SR-NSCC-2022-801:
There is a clear lack of transparency and accountability in the current U.S. market structure. This leads to a loss of trust in the U.S. financial markets themselves may result in reduced capital inflow from other countries, on which the U.S. market depends strongly if they want to maintain their globally leading position.
After reading the proposal SR-NSCC-2022-801 carefully I concluded that this proposal is another step in the wrong direction. Instead of creating more transparency, holding institutions and participants accountable, and creating fairer markets, it protects reckless behavior and disproportionate risk-taking by financial institutions.
The paragraph regarding the so-called Fire Sale Risk Mitigationis a clear impediment to fair pricing for the benefit of financial institutions and to the detriment of retail investors.
To be honest, it is frustrating to see the way the U.S. financial markets have taken over the last decade to become an untransparent structure without any chance of fair pricing. Chairman Gensler publicly admitted that 90-95% of all retail orders dont go to the exchanges and are therefore not part of price discovery. To say that such a market structure gives retail investors the best execution by executing through ATS is a simple farce.
I hoped that the SEC and other regulators would overhaul the market structure and fix the shortcomings of the current regulation, but SR-NSCC-2022-801 does not give any hope that the current regulators have the intent nor the interest to do so.
I really hope that the uprising of retail investors can give regulators the necessary backing to implement changes, but this trust needs to be earned.
I strongly advise against the implementation of SR-NSCC-2022-801.
Kindest regards,
J. F. Werner