The revelations of opacity around short selling, trade settlement, and unlit off-exchange trading is deeply troubling and an abomination to the ideals of free and transparent capital markets. The delay and self reporting of short interest, coupled with lack of meaningful deterrents like imprisonment or material fines (fining Robinhood $70 million for their role in the January Gamestop shenanigans is an amount so paltry relative to their revenue and profit, it can only be considered a bribe), results in daily market manipulation and theft from the average retail investor. One need only look at Gamestop stock performance over the past year to see clear price manipulation. There is also a clear conflict of interest for institutions with market making privileges like unreported synthetic share generation to simultaneously operate a hedge fund, IE Citadel. It's like a black jack dealer seeing everyone's cards and playing the game themselves. In regards to synthetic shares and Fails to Deliver, how can the total number of shares of a publicly traded company be unknown? It's well documented that the DTCC has many multiples of total shares for floats of publicly traded companies, and it's likely all. Why can FTD's simply pile up in perpetuity? How can a share not be delivered after purchase? The stock market has turned into a Ponzi scheme of the most epic proportions. The lack of data and self reporting of short positions along with low fines relative to revenue as a cost of doing business without prison time has got to stop. The institutions charged with regulating markets have become a joke and made our equity markets the laughing stock of the world. Fix this.
Aaron B Comment On Regulatory Notice 21-19
The revelations of opacity around short selling, trade settlement, and unlit off-exchange trading is deeply troubling and an abomination to the ideals of free and transparent capital markets. The delay and self reporting of short interest, coupled with lack of meaningful deterrents like imprisonment or material fines (fining Robinhood $70 million for their role in the January Gamestop shenanigans is an amount so paltry relative to their revenue and profit, it can only be considered a bribe), results in daily market manipulation and theft from the average retail investor. One need only look at Gamestop stock performance over the past year to see clear price manipulation. There is also a clear conflict of interest for institutions with market making privileges like unreported synthetic share generation to simultaneously operate a hedge fund, IE Citadel. It's like a black jack dealer seeing everyone's cards and playing the game themselves. In regards to synthetic shares and Fails to Deliver, how can the total number of shares of a publicly traded company be unknown? It's well documented that the DTCC has many multiples of total shares for floats of publicly traded companies, and it's likely all. Why can FTD's simply pile up in perpetuity? How can a share not be delivered after purchase? The stock market has turned into a Ponzi scheme of the most epic proportions. The lack of data and self reporting of short positions along with low fines relative to revenue as a cost of doing business without prison time has got to stop. The institutions charged with regulating markets have become a joke and made our equity markets the laughing stock of the world. Fix this.