We applauded the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) for announcing a financial stability framework to address the full range of financial risks that can threaten the country with catastrophe, and proposing a rule to rewrite the guidelines to enable the designation of systemically significant nonbanks.

The meme-stock trading frenzies highlighted longstanding market integrity and investor protection issues. The SEC has proposed reforms to address these issues and Better Markets’ comment letters examined many nuanced and complex provisions that have an opportunity to make our markets substantially fairer & more transparent to the average American retail investor.

Better Markets submitted an amicus curiae or “friend-of-the-court” brief in Robinhood Financial LLC v. Galvin in the Supreme Judicial Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This case is yet another legal action related to Robinhood’s long-running efforts to avoid accountability to its retail clients. Better Markets fully supports Massachusetts and the investor protections the state has in place that Robinhood is challenging, proving again it’s no Robin Hood. In its brief, Better Markets demonstrated that the state rule doesn’t conflict with the SEC’s weak counterpart known as “Reg BI” but rather supplements it for the benefit of investors

While the SEC has faced intense criticism from the financial industry and its allies in Congress, the agency has done important work to protect investors and ensure confidence in our markets. The SEC has done this despite the scope and breadth of its responsibilities increasing dramatically over the last decade. At the same, the agency’s funding has failed to keep pace. To continue overseeing the growing and ever-more complex markets, and to address numerous longstanding problems, the SEC must have additional resources at its disposal.

Stephen Hall, our legal director and securities specialist, spoke at the CFA Institute Climate Risk and Returns Conference this month. Steve’s panel explored how public policymakers, corporations, the investment community, and individual citizens all must work together to address climate change. He explained why the SEC’s rule proposals on mutual fund and climate risk disclosures are so important to protect investors from abuses in the burgeoning ESG investment market and to instill investor confidence so that the ESG movement can fulfill its potential.

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