Let's Talk Markets

On this special episode of Let's Talk Markets, Dave Lauer is joined by John Ramsay- Chief Market Policy and Regulatory Officer- and Ronan Ryan- President and co-founder of IEX, as well as co-hosts of the Boxes and Lines podcast. Join them as they discuss Payment for Order Flow, rebates, and more.

This week, Dave discusses the $AMC APE court decision with special guest, Renato Mariotti, Former Federal Prosecutor and host of the It's Complicated podcast and YouTube channel.

This week we welcome Justin Slaughter of Paradigm to discuss the recent SEC vs. Ripple decision that is sending shockwaves through the investment community, and leaving people wondering... what the heck defines a security, and what does this all mean?

Check out our accompanying blog post here!

This week's episode is about Climate Change, and what that has to do with our markets. We welcomed a special guest, Daniel Naim, CEO of Fennel Markets to discuss what this means for investors, and why it matters.

Gary Gensler is “taking a wrecking ball to every corner of our current equity market structure in one fell swoop.”

With these remarks Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-MO), Chair of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, opened a June 22nd hearing entitled Oversight of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets, the topic of this week's conversation.

This week we start off by celebrating the Beta release of urvin.finance and bring on special guest Alex Cohen (aka u/StonkU2 to the reddit community!) to discuss the journey that has brought us to Beta release as well as our future! Alex currently serves as Urvin's COO but his true calling lies in being a trusted wrinkle-brain among the ape community!

We also explore the topic of the week- the SEC Stabilization Act.

Be sure to check out our accompanying Blog post on urvin.finance!

It looks like the private party is over for cryptocurrency. 

Last week, the SEC filed two suits in rapid succession, accusing leading cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance on trading unregistered securities. In doing so, the Commission is making an important claim, one that will likely shape the future of virtual currency.   

In short, the Commission says cryptocurrencies are securities. If true, any unregistered exchange that sells these currencies, or any exchange which sells these currencies without registering them, is guilty of breaking the rules.

On the surface, that seems a pretty simple proposition. As securities, virtual currencies would be subject to some regulatory oversight, including greater transparency and investor protection.

But isn’t this a threat to the very spirit of decentralized finance? After all, the SEC is pretty central. 

Well, here’s the thing. We’re not here to take sides in the battle of regulators versus crypto. As always, we side with individual investors.

This week we discuss SEC waivers granted to those with the elite 'WKSI' status.

In 2005, the SEC introduced an innovative new issuer category called Well-Known Seasoned Issuer status. Qualifying for this status is a license to party. 

As a WKSI, you have access to SEC-issued waivers. These are granted in the event of a criminal conviction. The way the SEC explains it, “A waiver, which could include conditions or undertakings, may be granted if a review of all of the facts and circumstances leads the Division to conclude that granting the waiver would be consistent with the public interest and the protection of investors.”

If you’ve been following along, We The Investors (WTI) kicked some serious ass on our comment letter campaign. With more than 5,300 comment letters, we demonstrated clear, widespread, and well-informed support among individual investors for the SEC’s equity market structure reforms including:

Rest assured, you have been heard. The SEC is listening to us. We have a seat at the table, which is one hell of a start.

But somebody else is listening. Those who oppose us are also receiving our message loud and clear.

Last week, Robinhood announced that the app-based brokerage will now be providing customers with access to 24 hour trading. This week we do a deep dive into why that's a bad idea for retail investors, for multiple reasons.