Eras Tour of The Securities and Exchange Commission | The SEC’s 90th Anniversary

This video can be viewed at the below link.[1]

How did Taylor Swift break all-time records with the Eras Tour?

Well, beyond her remarkable talent, there’s also a lot of value in sharing one’s story.

And here at the SEC there’s also lots of talent and history. So, as we celebrate the SEC’s 90^th anniversary, let’s take an “eras tour” of our own.

After the 1929 market crash, President Roosevelt signed the first of the federal securities laws in 1933. He followed a year later with the passage of the Securities Exchange Act—making June 6, 1934 our birthday here at the SEC.

And then he appointed Joe Kennedy Sr. as our first Chair. Roosevelt went on to work with Congress to enact five more securities laws. Taken together, they formed the foundation of our capital markets. These laws were about protecting the investing public by ensuring they had what Roosevelt called, “complete and truthful disclosure.”

The SEC was created to ensure that the markets worked free of fraud and manipulation—and that investment advisers fulfilled their duties to the investors they advised.

20 years later, Chair Kennedy’s son Jack became President, rolled up his sleeves, and started the reinvigoration of the SEC. It was a time of change and turmoil for the U.S.: the Civil Rights movement, but also the loss of towering figures like JFK, RFK, MLK—as well as too many lives in Vietnam. It was the time of the mainframe computer, with rapid changes in technology and finance.

In response, JFK’s successors worked with Congress and SEC Chairs Manny Cohen through Ray Garrett to update the securities laws.

The 1980s brought us Wall Street the movie, and greedy villains like Gordon Gekko.

At the time, SEC Chair John Shad vowed to come down on the real-life insider traders with "hobnail boots." And when he succeeded, the SEC staff presented him with an inscribed pair.

It also was a time of turmoil in the government securities markets, where a dozen or more firms failed, and Congress responded again by granting the SEC new authorities relating to both the U.S. treasury markets and to insider trading.

The 90s brought us the internet and the dotcom bubble, dramatically changing the face of finance. While Taylor Swift was but a kid, a crisis was brewing in the world of auditing. Faulty accounting led to historic bankruptcies.

In response, Congress passed The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I was honored to work with my hometown Senator, Paul Sarbanes, to help restore trust in our financial system.

But excesses continued building elsewhere in the system. The Financial Crisis of 2008 led to more than eight million Americans losing their jobs, millions losing their homes, and small businesses folding across the country.

Once again, Congress responded with reforms tasking the SEC with new authorities in The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. Among its revisions, it better protected the public from problems in the financial sector. And as the economy rebounded, President Obama also signed into law the JOBS Act in 2012.

In the 2020s, the world may be changing faster than Taylor’s wardrobe changes on tour.

Artificial Intelligence, social media, influencers and a global pandemic. With dramatic increase in retail investing, we’ve also seen SPACS, memestocks, and crypto. With all this change, we at the SEC continue to consistently apply the rules and update them where appropriate in the current era so that markets work best for investors and issuers.

Trends and wardrobes—they come and go. What matters is how we evolve while holding true to our core values. Regardless of the era, our financial system remains seated in the middle of the economy, like the neck of an hourglass whose grains of sand are money and risk.

The SEC’s mission has always been about protecting investors on one end, facilitating capital formation on the other, and ensuring that the markets in the middle are fair, orderly and efficient and work for you.

It’s only with continually updating our rules and fulfilling this mission, regardless of era, that our capital markets will remain the envy of the world. The SEC’s mission is meant to last for evermore.