It is commonly understood that for every transaction the terms of the exchange is known by both parties and executed faithfully to produce what we consider the stock market. Technology now allows for near instant transactions for market participants, therefore the due diligence of reporting that transaction to regulatory authorities should occur simultaneously with the transaction itself. This will promote accuracy and efficiency of reporting and compliance. T-0 transactions with instant updates for all market participants. A system that reports in real-time will help ensure rejection of mismarked positions, naked shorts, married puts, and other manners of misleading other market participants, as well as allow for real-time application of penalties and fines for companies that continue to abuse the market. Furthermore, loan terms published in a comparable open report would be fantastic to facilitate market fluidity and generate additional investment strategies. Currently few brokerages even offer lending options to customers that have not enrolled in options trading on account and have high financial thresholds to enroll in these programs. It would be beneficial and competitive to the market to have transparent loan terms and thereby expand opportunities for investors to find strategies that mitigate risk and promote healthy market growth in this sector. I believe that the current level of fines and penalties levied as punishment against those found guilty of blatant market manipulation needs to be reevaluated and adjusted to modern financial levels and proper criminal penalties. The "historic $70 million" fine leveled against Robinhood recently isn’t even a significant portion of the earnings they receive from Citadel for PFOF and wasn't enough of a deterrent to even have them state they wouldn't do it again. When companies are profiting billions of dollars annually from manipulating stock prices I call it what it actually is: theft. The market participants willfully marking short sales as long, burying short interest in married options, the ridiculous FTD cycles being reset by exchanging positions, all of these and more are nothing more than scams designed to rob fellow market participants and do nothing except enrich criminals and destroy the trust in the American market. Justice demands harder punishments, faster enforcement and closing the loopholes that allow this illegal activity. One such loophole I would propose is to eliminate FTD's from the marketplace entirely. Even on a "threshold security" list AMC shares were readily available on the open market. I propose that at close of day, every day, all outstanding FTD's are converted to "'At market open' market price buy orders" to fulfill the entire purchase obligation. I also propose to update the SSR Rule 201(c) to something more realistically based on current market price. Whenever AMC stock is on the short sale-related circuit breaker list the ability to bypass the SSR rule was done by marking shares exempt in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes as much as 99% of the total short volume for the day. That's blatantly useless to help "prevent short selling, including potentially abusive or manipulative short selling, from being used as a tool to exacerbate a decline in a security's price and to address concerns that excessive downward price pressure on individual securities, accompanied by the fear of unconstrained short selling, can undermine investor confidence in the markets." As a citizen and a proud market participant, I demand justice and logical reform in our market.
Jay Sayer Comment On Regulatory Notice 21-19
It is commonly understood that for every transaction the terms of the exchange is known by both parties and executed faithfully to produce what we consider the stock market. Technology now allows for near instant transactions for market participants, therefore the due diligence of reporting that transaction to regulatory authorities should occur simultaneously with the transaction itself. This will promote accuracy and efficiency of reporting and compliance. T-0 transactions with instant updates for all market participants. A system that reports in real-time will help ensure rejection of mismarked positions, naked shorts, married puts, and other manners of misleading other market participants, as well as allow for real-time application of penalties and fines for companies that continue to abuse the market. Furthermore, loan terms published in a comparable open report would be fantastic to facilitate market fluidity and generate additional investment strategies. Currently few brokerages even offer lending options to customers that have not enrolled in options trading on account and have high financial thresholds to enroll in these programs. It would be beneficial and competitive to the market to have transparent loan terms and thereby expand opportunities for investors to find strategies that mitigate risk and promote healthy market growth in this sector. I believe that the current level of fines and penalties levied as punishment against those found guilty of blatant market manipulation needs to be reevaluated and adjusted to modern financial levels and proper criminal penalties. The "historic $70 million" fine leveled against Robinhood recently isn’t even a significant portion of the earnings they receive from Citadel for PFOF and wasn't enough of a deterrent to even have them state they wouldn't do it again. When companies are profiting billions of dollars annually from manipulating stock prices I call it what it actually is: theft. The market participants willfully marking short sales as long, burying short interest in married options, the ridiculous FTD cycles being reset by exchanging positions, all of these and more are nothing more than scams designed to rob fellow market participants and do nothing except enrich criminals and destroy the trust in the American market. Justice demands harder punishments, faster enforcement and closing the loopholes that allow this illegal activity. One such loophole I would propose is to eliminate FTD's from the marketplace entirely. Even on a "threshold security" list AMC shares were readily available on the open market. I propose that at close of day, every day, all outstanding FTD's are converted to "'At market open' market price buy orders" to fulfill the entire purchase obligation. I also propose to update the SSR Rule 201(c) to something more realistically based on current market price. Whenever AMC stock is on the short sale-related circuit breaker list the ability to bypass the SSR rule was done by marking shares exempt in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes as much as 99% of the total short volume for the day. That's blatantly useless to help "prevent short selling, including potentially abusive or manipulative short selling, from being used as a tool to exacerbate a decline in a security's price and to address concerns that excessive downward price pressure on individual securities, accompanied by the fear of unconstrained short selling, can undermine investor confidence in the markets." As a citizen and a proud market participant, I demand justice and logical reform in our market.