April 20, 2004
Dear SEC Commissioners,
I write this note urging you to re-think your position with regards to mutual fund trading regulations you may be considering.
The true thieves are the professional mutual fund traders that are executing an arbitrage in mutual fund buying/selling enabled by the difference in time zones and stale pricing. As well as the corrupt insiders at these organizations that conspire to aid in such illegal activities.
There is no individual investor or market timer, as some of you have incorrectly labeled, that has broken any law by not holding a mutual fund for a minimum amount of time. The individual investor should not be forced into any type of short-term or early redemption fee by the SEC. If a fund happens to have such a policy, then so be it, just as long as there is free supply and demand and we, the consumer, have an option to move our money elsewhere where these fees do not exist.
The individual mutual fund consumer should have the ability to protect his/her nestegg in the event of a market decline and reallocate funds accordingly to protect our hard-earned savings.
Furthermore, enacting a mandatory early redemption fee from mutual funds will open the gates to consumer abuses as some funds may impose 30, 60, 90, 120 day minimums and unreasonably profit from such a regulation, especially in the case where Mr. John Q. Public pulls his money out of the mutual fund in a declining market for fear of losing it all.
Please protect us, the individual investor, by maintaining our FREEDOM TO INVEST OUR MONEY AS WE SEE FIT, instead of lining the pockets of the mutual fund industry by enabling them to gouge us with more fees
Sincerely,
Julio Rodriguez
Parkland, FL