BetterMarkets

Only if you give up and don't participate. Everyone has to spend a few minutes a day or week - get informed, get involved, participate, comment, get mad and fight like hell. It's your money. It's your future. Fight for it and it'll be better. Opt out, and it'll get worse. Yes lots of bad things are going on, but that just means that we have a lot to do and no time to waste! Together we can win, not always, but sometimes and the more we act together the more we'll win and that will create a self-fulfilling cycle that will draw more people to get involved which will result in more wins. The KEY is to start now. Do what you can do. tell others what you're doing and tell them to get involved. It'll snowball.

Start now and go to www.BetterTakeAction.org and start now, send a comment, tell others to do the same!!

Wow. great question. In SEC-land, I'd say require all brokers and advisors to have a fiduciary duty that requires them to put their customer's interests first no matter what. I'd also require a strict best execution standard so that you actually get best execution for your trades rather then just enriching the middle men who don't disclose how they are ripping you off. I'd eliminate dark pools, ATSs and the many needless exchanges to ensure that virtually all trading is done on lit public exchanges so that price discovery can happen and be meaningful (although I recognize the need to figure out how to address market moving block trades). Eliminating payment for order flow; requiring the full disclosure in understandable language of all fees and costs associated with any trade or advice; I'll stop there but I'd have a very busy magic wand if I had one (including in other areas like banking where Glass Steagall, much higher capital and liquidity requirements, etc. would need to be imposed!).

I'd also require the SEC and other agencies to pay more attention to the public and the public interest than to the industry they are supposed to be regulating to protect the public. The SEC should regularly survey the real public for their input on proposals, and not allow the industry to overwhelm the process. The SEC should see obtaining public involvement as one of their highest missions. They have to go out, inform the public and make it easy for them to participate and express their views. Otherwise the industry will continue to dominate the process and basically write the rules that are supposed to regulate them - that doesn't work as we can all see.

Obviously reducing the reporting frequency from every quarter to every six months would reduce the burden on the company, but it's not really much of a burden. First, any well run company has this information readily available virtually all the time because they need it to run their company. Second, in this age of computers and now AI, getting this information is as easy as its ever been. Third, the burden is really no more than putting the existing information in a particular format for filing.

But more importantly, you have to remember that the quarterly reports do not provide transparency for transparency's sake. Public companies are supposed to be owned by the shareholders - they are the owners of the company and these reports are reports to the owners. That's because these companies have gone to the public, asked for their money, and told them what they are going to do with that money. These periodic reports are what companies do because they asked for and took money from the public based on representations about what they were going to do with their money. That's why companies should have to provide their shareholders, and other prospective investors in their company, with frequent updates about the company's financial condition and activities. The SEC should not be making it easier for companies to take peoples' money with less disclosure; it should be siding with investors and making it easier for investors to get these frequent updates.

The assumption that companies would be run better if they had to hit sales or other numbers less frequently doesn't make sense. Companies should conduct their businesses to achieve the goals they told shareholders when asking for their money. It's also noteworthy that counties that have reporting only every 6 months have not show better performance or more focus on the longer term. That's why there's so little support for this change. When it was considered last time in 2018 - when the SEC issued an RFI - the comments were overwhelmingly supportive of quarterly reporting. In fact, the SEC de facto admits this in the proposal itself which is largely supported by speculation not facts.

If you are not opposing the bad guys as often as you can then you are helping the bad guys - it's that simple! They succeed not just because of their money and connections, but because the opposition often just doesn't show up! Showing up, speaking up, making your voice heard is key - do it damnit! As i said before, there are way more of you than there are of them - retail and the public is a sleeping giant and if more of them would speak up then some (not all) but some of the bad things won't happen and more good things will happen.

We know it's not easy and people are busy and yes the government and the industry try to make it hard for regular people to effectively participate and advocate for themselves. Frankly many of the things they do are to intimidate and discourage people from participating - that's why we're trying to make it as quick and easy as possible here for you to participate in this rulemaking. At www.BetterTakeAction.org it'll only take a few minutes and its easy to send a personalized comment to the SEC. We can't do that all the time for all the rules but we can sometimes for some of the rules. However, even when we can't, you simply must not disempower yourself - this is your money; your livelihoods; your hopes and dreams. Don't the the self interested industry, the CEOs, fat cats, financial predators, scammers, and crooks write the rules to favor them and disadvantage you. Fight back!

Thanks for engaging! And please send the SEC a comment and tell them not to take information away from you. And TELL your friends, fellow traders, etc., share on social, etc. get the word out. If we all do that, it makes it very very difficult for the SEC to do this. Go to www.BetterTakeAction.org