From: Keith Hartwell [keith.hartwell@cchinc.com]
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 10:41 AM
To: rule-comments@sec.gov
Subject: S7-27-03

Dear Mr. Katz:



I own a small consulting business.  I have 17 employees and I offer a self-managed 
401(k) program.  We can and do allocate our investments across a variety of stock 
and bond mutual funds.  I have encouraged my employees to contribute the maximum 
amount by providing a 50 cents on the dollar match.  I arrange for the plan 
administrator to periodically meet with the employees to answer their questions 
and to discuss money management issues.  



These are intelligent individuals.  While they do not follow every twist and turn 
of the market they do actively manage their accounts.  They move their investments 
from stock funds to bond funds to money market funds depending on their view of 
the market.  The SEC’s proposed hard 4:00 pm close is not fair to these small 
investors.  Under your proposal their new deadline for trading is now as early as 
12 noon if they want to act on whatever information they are using to make their
decisions.  Meanwhile, the large institutional investor has until 4:00 pm to make 
his or her decisions.



I have no doubt that some wealthy well connected investors broke the law and bent 
the rules.  The system should be fixed to insure that this cannot happen again.  
But surely there is a way to fix this problem without punishing average investors 
that had nothing to do with the problem in the first place.



I have to believe there are millions of employees just like mine that actually 
manage their 401(k)’s.  While the idea of losing three or four hours of the trading 
day may sound trivial now, once individuals that do pay attention to their accounts 
start losing principal because of this one day lag I believe you will find you have 
a big backlash on your hands.



Surely with today’s technology there is some way to create a system that does not
discriminate against the 401(k) investor.  When I pull up my stock watch list on 
my own computer, the chart indicates to the minute when an individual stock last 
traded.  You must be able to develop a similar system that achieves the results 
you desire.



I appreciate the opportunity to comment on this matter.



Keith Hartwell, President
Chambers, Conlon & Hartwell
122 C Street NW #850
Washington DC 20001