The Great Debate

Once again someone in charge — Mary Schapiro of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this time –  is going on about how they are making changes in order to “preserve investor confidence.”

As if this were in some way a good thing.

I would feel a whole lot better if instead the SEC were talking about making investors more sceptical.

The SEC on Wednesday moved by a 3-2 vote to place additional limits on short selling of stocks, the practice of betting on a decline in a given stock by borrowing shares, selling them and contracting to buy them back later at what the seller hopes will be a lower price.

The new curb would serve as a so-called circuit breaker for shares that have fallen 10 percent or more in a trading session.

“It is a rule that is designed to preserve investor confidence and promote market efficiency,” said Schapiro, the SEC’s chairman.

-James Daly is TD Waterhouse Investor Centre Representative regarding investor confidence.  The opinions expressed are his own.-

Will the new decade herald the emergence of a new breed of self-reliant individual investors?

Some seem to think so according to TD Waterhouse’s annual Investor Confidence Survey of over 1,000 individual investors across the UK, with over half (53 percent) of respondents stating that they now rely more on their own decisions when making investment choices compared to just under a fifth (19 percent) who said they look more to professional advisers and brokers than they did last year.