I agree, but how soon? You think by year's end... or indeterminite future? I ask because it's obvious that Bernanke is feeling pressure on re-appointment. And that would make for even more ridiculous fed policy.
After sleeping on that idea, I think that IS a good idea to do in addition to quickly sending individual comments to the link in the first post in this thread. I'll support it. There's a site that allows such "collective letters". I can't think of the name of it though.
I've googled "petition online" and I've found bunch of them: www.thepetitionsite.com www.petitiononline.com www.ipetitions.com
I have seen a couple responses that say good, all for it, maybe it would be a good thing. Actually, I agree. Depending on your style, this may not necessarily mean an end to intraday or short-term. Some of us traded for many years with plus ticks and here is why it may not be so bad. It will dramatically cut down on intraday volatility. Once a stock starts to decline it will do so in a much more orderly fashion. As shorts sit on top of it, there will be fewer spike shakeouts if you are indeed already short. It will also dramatically cut down on algorithms that 'check' the electronic books up and down to trade for pennies. When the shorts at a certain level are 'taken out' it will start a brief rally in a stock. I am not assuming these things, this is from watching how it has worked in the past. As long as its a level playing field, it will be fine. May even be a plus as current markets are ruled by these computers. Spec's and market makers were exempt under the old rule. Seeing as we now have decimalization and the floor is only a small portion of the composite, this will not be the case this time around. Noone likes change, but IMHO I think we might just benefit from this rule change.
I find it interesting that there are traders that have posted that not only are they not against the SEC proposal but would actually be in favor of it. (I am not trying to attack anyone. I do think that perhaps some of the opinions where shot from the hip and by people who may not do a lot of trading from both sides long and short) Firstly and this is perhaps the most important point of this debate is that all of the proposals including the one the SEC has pushed into the front is a ban ONLY on YOU. Not the market makers, Specialists, or option market makers. So the whole idea that this is a ban on short selling is ludicrous at best and will most surely hurt (retail) day traders both long and shorts in favor of market makers. With this so called "ban" in place the next time you want to short a stock you WILL get in line after the market makers get their fill first. You don't short stocks and only trade to the long side? Well sorry but don't expect much of a change one way or the other. You should have no opinion that this ban will aid your trading in any way. If you do you have most likely based it on zero public evidence (I would welcome someone to show some evidence that a ban would be good for anyone OTHER than market makers) Some say that Bear and LEH went down due to "bear raids" but I would argue that they went down because they went broke (and I lost a bundle with being long LEH so I remember that one well but I sure as hell don't blame shorts for either my loss or that LEH went BK) I think its a very scary thing to turn the clock back and allow for more manipulation by the big money on Wall St and suggest that we let the SEC know that we want to keep the playing field as level as we been able to so far get it. Don't turn yourself into a second class citizen with stocks. Ask the futures traders if having shorts is a bad thing. After all every single futures contract has a long and a short. Thanks for reading my opinion on this and I wish you guys the best in trading. Robert
Thanks for the link to the SEC. Here are the comments I sent them but they remove all of my exclamation points: You are imposing too many restrictions! Traders can't breathe. If you are going to crack down on short sales again then please give us back something like undoing the T3 that restricts everybody to 3 day trades in a 5 day period or reverse those additional SEC fees you imposed earlier this year(I'm sure you are not making any more money by doing that because the bigger traders have just cut back on their excessive trading and this is hurting the rest of us who thrive on volatility -- so what was the point of increasing the fees?) or shut your face about investigating flash orders. Give something back please! YOU ARE CLAMPING DOWN ON ALL CORNERS with all this regulation! If you want to restrict short sales again, please give us something back or I won't vote for Obama in the next election! I'm sure the entire trading community feels the same way.