Currently, wealthy professional stock traders have a HUGE advantage when it comes to the stock market: they can BUY essentially secret information about stocks from the major exchanges like Nasdaq.
Power players can make millions from info that you and I just don’t have access to! The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates the stock market, recently tried to make everything more fair, though.
Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) just SUED the SEC to prevent it from doing this! They don’t want everyday traders like us to have all the information needed to make profitable trades.
And this isn’t even the first time they’ve rejected the SEC’s attempts to make the stock market more fair.
In 2020, the SEC tried to test whether the fees that exchanges charge investors are unfair. The exchanges successfully prevented the SEC from even performing the experiment.
Not everyone agrees with the exchanges. The SEC’s proposed changes were “steps in the right direction,” argued Jonathan Kellner, head of Members Exchange. He says the exchanges are trying to maintain “a two-tier system of market data.”
These lawsuits show that the stock exchanges cater to the rich and well-connected – not everyday investors. Investing in stocks remains one of the best wealth-building tools available to Black Americans, but we have to remember that it’s not built for us – and be careful with our investments!