- Jun 6, 2007
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It's damn important America's financial markets operate in a fair and good manner. They create and preserve wealth for people which directly impacts their standard of living and quality of life. There shouldn't be any manipulation going on where a person or group of people have a different standard applied to them that harms their pecuniary interests. It shouldn't be an insiders game where the system applies a different standard for insiders that provides significant financial advantages for them. When any investor goes to buy and sell his or her security or asset with their brokerage and they put a limit on the buy or sell order the brokerage or whatever financial institution ends up evaluating that order for execution their person doing the evaluation should not be applying a different standard or criteria between the published bid/ask spread on how to execute the order. All investors should be treated equally in regard to the execution price result for orders. Brokerages should not use their relationship with an investor or any information gained from a confidence or relationship (for example an investors research or trading activity) or in violation of an investor's privacy to raise or lower the price of a financial market asset the investor is or would be interested in; brokerages and financial institution should always be acting ethically your relationship with an investor is not an opportunity to take advantage of the investor.
Besides individual unfairness brokerages and financial institutions should not be unfair or take advantage of a group of investors. For example if a group of investors say are thinking or heard maybe company A stock is going to take off and are considering investing the brokerage shouldn't have that information passed on to their trading desk so they can buy some of that stock and ride a price rise wave and in so doing drive up the price for the evaluating investors. Further, if a potential investment opportunity exists in our society a brokerage or group of financial institutions shouldn't individually or in conjunction whether coordinated or not say and pursue we are going to take away through pricing of the investment the investment appeal of it because we don't want ordinary investors to make a lot of money through this investment, if what the financial institution(s) is (are) doing does not make good business sense that should raise a red flag that questions should be asked is something this ethically questionable going on!
It's tough to police ethics and fairness in the financial markets the government probably cannot do it completely that is not to say they could not stop overt unethical behavior if brokerages are having the people evaluating accounts for execution of buy/sell orders with different standards related to the published ask/bid spread on what to make the execution price be including if to allow execution at all that is unethical and can be stopped by regulators with fines and employment prohibition in the industry. So also if brokerages are systematically having their investor advisors, help desk, trading activity and the like pass on specific information garnished from those investor interactions to the trading desk of the brokerages to be used by the trading desk to trade so as to hurt these investors pecuniary interests by causing the investments to be less attractive. Certainly, financial institutions like all businesses have a right to maximize profit and like general retail businesses when demand is high customers will have to pay a higher price for the products they want the key thing is are managers and people in authority in financial institutions making their decisions involved in the operation of their business solely based on legitimate business reasons if there is other reasons behind their decisions that are not good or legitimate such behavior should stop, plain and simple it should stop immediately and permanently!
Besides a duty to be fair and ethical financial institutions, individual investors, and groups of investors have a broader civic duty not only to be fair and ethical but also morally good in their actions in the financial markets. A participant(s) in the markets shouldn't be engaging in activity in the markets which has as its essential purpose to harm another person(s) financially or from a pecuniary interests standpoint. A participant(s) in the markets shouldn't be engaging in activity in the markets that has as its essential purpose to diminish the political and/or social power of a person(s) and/or somehow harm a person(s) from such a power standpoint. The financial markets in America belong to the American people they are a creation that rises out of our country's laws and economy and because it rises out of these good things it has a condition of good that attaches to it in all its respects meaning that those that want to participate in it have a moral duty to behave in a morally good manner. As touched on earlier the government is limited in its ability to effectuate this but the American people are to a very large degree a religious people a people that believe in a God and a God that answers prayer so I would like to suggest that the American people permanently add to the list of things they regularly pray for, like peace, a petition that America's financial markets operate in a fair and good manner and free from wrongful manipulation! If one wants a good world it won't be fully one with financial markets that don't have these qualities!
Besides individual unfairness brokerages and financial institutions should not be unfair or take advantage of a group of investors. For example if a group of investors say are thinking or heard maybe company A stock is going to take off and are considering investing the brokerage shouldn't have that information passed on to their trading desk so they can buy some of that stock and ride a price rise wave and in so doing drive up the price for the evaluating investors. Further, if a potential investment opportunity exists in our society a brokerage or group of financial institutions shouldn't individually or in conjunction whether coordinated or not say and pursue we are going to take away through pricing of the investment the investment appeal of it because we don't want ordinary investors to make a lot of money through this investment, if what the financial institution(s) is (are) doing does not make good business sense that should raise a red flag that questions should be asked is something this ethically questionable going on!
It's tough to police ethics and fairness in the financial markets the government probably cannot do it completely that is not to say they could not stop overt unethical behavior if brokerages are having the people evaluating accounts for execution of buy/sell orders with different standards related to the published ask/bid spread on what to make the execution price be including if to allow execution at all that is unethical and can be stopped by regulators with fines and employment prohibition in the industry. So also if brokerages are systematically having their investor advisors, help desk, trading activity and the like pass on specific information garnished from those investor interactions to the trading desk of the brokerages to be used by the trading desk to trade so as to hurt these investors pecuniary interests by causing the investments to be less attractive. Certainly, financial institutions like all businesses have a right to maximize profit and like general retail businesses when demand is high customers will have to pay a higher price for the products they want the key thing is are managers and people in authority in financial institutions making their decisions involved in the operation of their business solely based on legitimate business reasons if there is other reasons behind their decisions that are not good or legitimate such behavior should stop, plain and simple it should stop immediately and permanently!
Besides a duty to be fair and ethical financial institutions, individual investors, and groups of investors have a broader civic duty not only to be fair and ethical but also morally good in their actions in the financial markets. A participant(s) in the markets shouldn't be engaging in activity in the markets which has as its essential purpose to harm another person(s) financially or from a pecuniary interests standpoint. A participant(s) in the markets shouldn't be engaging in activity in the markets that has as its essential purpose to diminish the political and/or social power of a person(s) and/or somehow harm a person(s) from such a power standpoint. The financial markets in America belong to the American people they are a creation that rises out of our country's laws and economy and because it rises out of these good things it has a condition of good that attaches to it in all its respects meaning that those that want to participate in it have a moral duty to behave in a morally good manner. As touched on earlier the government is limited in its ability to effectuate this but the American people are to a very large degree a religious people a people that believe in a God and a God that answers prayer so I would like to suggest that the American people permanently add to the list of things they regularly pray for, like peace, a petition that America's financial markets operate in a fair and good manner and free from wrongful manipulation! If one wants a good world it won't be fully one with financial markets that don't have these qualities!
