Dear committee members,
I can not take credit for my prescription to take good cuddly care of the small investors. The Korean bond mutual funds are not allowed to post capital loss regardless of interest rate fluctuations. There is an Indian mutual fund that can only post successively higher prices regardless of true Net Asset Value. And you Americans think you are being coddled by Greenspan and that systems outside of the USA lack transparency.
I am a small investor, I do not want to be taken care of by having everybody?s trade executed at successively higher levels. I want to be taken care of by having my sell trades, and only my sell trades, executed at the highest level of each and every trading day; as for my buy trades, I would like those executed at the lowest price of the same days. There is a mathematical elegance and logical symmetry to my desire. I understand that, in order to enjoy this prescribed privilege, and it is a privilege, I need to be a friend of GS on the warrants, and ML on the stocks.
Edwin, you complain about ML with justification, as they probably execute for their friends first and I venture to guess that they are their own best friends. Can not fault them for being considerate and loyal.
To stop complaining about the stock trades. Try the GS warrants sometime and experience the absolute certain feeling of being a lamb in the pouring rain, miles from the nearest shelter but steps away from the slaughter house. There are no live quotes for these self-serving (and it would not be yourself) derivatives, only indicated prices given over the phone. There are no prompt confirmations unless own dedicated broker keeps calling into Europe to check order status and latest indicated price. Should your broker have a dinner appointment after 7:00pm in HK, you start imagining what may be happening to you in Europe, until the next morning. It will not be a question of whether you having be laundered, but how much soap was used. There certainly is no indicated volume. However, odds are tilted less slightly in favor of the MM as no Market orders are allowed. |
