The right to freely invest our money is no different than any other fundamental freedom in this country (although many are constantly under attack). Consumers have both the right and responsibility to educate themselves about the risks & rewards associated with any investment, make the personal choice, and accept responsibility for it. Financial regulations always have the perverse effect of limiting the public's freedoms and access to wealth, while concentrating the power and wealth in the hands of one privileged class or another. Freedom must always come first.

I oppose a retail ban on ETFs based on commodities because future trading is well beyond my risk tolerance as I've heard horror stories that are about bad futures investments. I would like to be able to invest in silver or gold and I wouldn't want to touch the futures market with a 10ft pole. I've had great success with Vix etf securities as I made a few hundred dollars just by paying attention to current events regarding the Ukraine crisis. I just made sure to take profit and get out of the trades when I was up 50 or 100 dollars per trade.

Why would you take more away from hard working individual private investors. This is unacceptable. Why should there be any regulations differences for anyone? You are considering making the market playing field even more uneven than it already is! I strongly object to any proposed changes to investing in any public securities, especially leveraged and inverse funds!! This will greatly affect my portfolio negatively and this seems like yet another attempt at keeping returns out of the hands of the public and into the hands of the already wealthy.

The ability for investors to invest in leveraged ETFs should not be altered in any way. ProShares and other firms do an excellent job informing investors of the inherent risks in leveraged ETFs. It is then up to the investor to make his/her own informed decision on whether he/she has the risk appetite to invest in such funds. In a free market democratic society, investing ones own earned funds where they see fit is a fundamental principle.

Leveraged and inverse funds are great investment tools for most investors. They really only need a basic understanding of the market and economics. More unique regulations are not required and could negatively impact the benefits of these tools without preventing the negative consequences of investing in the market. Investing in the market has has inherent risk. There are many ways to lose significant money with the wrong investment strategy.

Although it might be good intention to enforce more rules and regulation for leveraged and inverse ETFs. The enforcement could create unfair conditions for investors. Leveraged and inverse ETFs might have their own unique characteristics. But once put on the market and traded freely by market participants, the market force will help regulate behaviors of investors. All investments have risk. And the leveraged and inverse ETFs do not presenet any more risk, than a company that could go bankrupt and wipe all value of common stocks.

I am fully aware of how these work and choose to accept greater risk on a small portion of my investments.

I am now retired and age 76 but worked most of my career investing as a fiduciary on behalf of pensions, foundations, and endowment founds. I now invest my own IRA via ETrade and have sometimes used leveraged ETFs to manage risk. For example, since I hold some longer term corporate bonds I recently used the TBT ProShares ultrashort Treasury bond to hedge against the rise in interest rates. Please don't take this option away.

Dear regulators, I am very concerned about your new proposals to limit the ability of individual investors to invest in leveraged or inverse funds. While this is being pursued under the guise of protecting individual investors, it instead harms individual investors by limiting their ability to invest in vehicles which are available to institutional investors. While I can understand having required reading materials to invest in higher risk vehicles, the remainder of the proposed regulations simply act as barriers to individual investors and make an even more uneven playing field.

I oppose your desire to restrict my freedom to choose what I can do with the money I earned. Your regulatory body has no right to take away my liberties in this manner. Ideas such as this run counter to American ideals. Unelected technocrats like yourselves must stop burdening citizens and eroding our freedom with ideas such as this.