Saturday, March 7, 2009

Stock Market Regulation

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I'm a simple trader and this is just my thoughts. I'm not an expert, yet, on my opinion government and SEC has to do something to protect stock market from tragic and devastating crashes and only then pump money in the economy. Not to be judged as a person that screams only (based on my previous "Stock Market Crash and Regulations" post), below I set a few points that I think could protect the stock market from devastating crashes. Of course it's not my job - government and SEC could do better and I hope they will do:
  1.  Banks should be separated from the trading on Wall Street. The purpose of the bank is to provide money communication between people, companies and government. If the banks start to play trading games on the Wall Street and then bank's trading losses on may affect the main purpose of the banks and the economy as a result. We can have investments banks and other investments institutions, yet, they have to be separated from the banks that provide money communication between people and businesses, that lend money to the people and businesses, where people and businesses keep their savings.
  2.  If the market has dropped for more than 10% in three consecutive trading session the SEC has to prohibit playing short (selling stocks short, buying put options, selling naked calls .....) for the next three trading days and whoever is in the short position has to receive a margin call to close the short position within these three days. There are a lot of traders and hedge funds who can turn small decline into a devastating stock market crash. I am sure that the SEC may come with better numbers, yet, I believe that we need some rule to protect the stock market and the economy from the big players who has big money and who does not care about economy crash if he/she can make money on it. People should be able to trade short, yet, in the moments when stock market crash starts to affect the economy people should not have interest in destroying the economy. Stock market has to have ability to crash. During the crash market cleans itself. However, the crash should not be amplified by those who playing short or it will be turned into economy damaging process.
  3.  Traders, hedge funds, portfolio managers should be prohibited to have more than $100,000,000 ($100 millions) in short position. Exception could be made only for those portfolio managers who has more that 70% of their funds in the long position, then the rest 30% of their funds even if is more than $100M could be in the short position. Wall Street should stimulate economy not crash it. Again, I am sure SEC can come with better numbers.
So, do you think such rules protects the economy and traders from the manipulators who does not care about the health of the economy, or such rules are a threat to the free stock market...

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