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Is this where we're heading? Will everything in our trading world be faster, more efficient, easier, and more productive? In a word, yes! |
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This is not to seriously suggest that we are heading for a Jetson lifestyle. As you look at what the various players in the securities industry want to do over the next several years, however, a very positive and exciting picture emerges for the Sixth Market trader. |
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Do you know what the regulators really want? They want investors to have the highest possible chance to succeed. It's that simple. The regulators want a level playing field where price, order flow, and depth of market are known to all, so that an individual trades with the same knowledge and market access as the most well-connected professional. Regulators will continue to take regulatory and disciplinary actions to ensure that these things happen. |
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The regulators also want an informed trader. On January 27, 1999, Arthur Levitt, chairman of the SEC, commented that he is most concerned about the lack of education in most online traders: |
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Over the past two years, particularly in recent months, the SEC has been hearing concerns about retail, online (Internet) investing. In fact, the number of complaints concerning online investing has increased by 330 percent in the last year. Some of the issues raised specifically relate to online trading, others are generic to all investing. The majority of them can be addressed through better education and investors ensuring that they have done their homework. |
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We will come back to this theme time and again in this book. Trading consists of skills that can be learned, and those skills are not that difficult to master. The professionals on Wall Street have those skills. The trader in the Sixth Market who does not have those skills is at a big disadvantage. The regulators will continue to push for an educated public. |
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The regulators want suitability; they want to ensure that, before someone makes a single trade, that individual has the education and the financial capacity to manage the risks of that trade. If the broker makes a trading recommendation of any kind, the burden of determining suitability rests squarely with that broker. The regulators will take serious action against those companies which flout the suitability regulations. |
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