Please tell Hsien Loong or Chok Tong

Some of you reading this may have access to either one of them and you have my permission to tell them of my views about the Stock Market. My position is that the mechanism and structure have many flaws and the Stock Market is unsustainable in the long run. It will die a slow death with many innocent investors losing their life savings. We should not wait till another minibond scenario before we wake up. It is in need of an urgent review. One main point is that our market is too small, too imperfect that it can be easily cornered by the big funds or houses and be played to the disadvantage of small investors. Short selling is one feature that is often used against the small investors causing big losses to them. Short selling also disadvantages the shareholders and the company by driving the share price down against its fair value. This has many consequences to the company in fund raising and to shareholders who may pledge such shares as collaterals. The smallness of our investor pool and their limited resources are severely stressed by a constant inflow of new listings and also new derivatives. Not forgetting cross listing of stocks from other bourses. To make things worst, many of the stocks listed have proven to be raw deals resulting in many investors losing their pants. Then there is the uneven playing field between small and big investors, trading houses and big funds in the commissions charged. This literally translated into different odds favouring the big boys. Even casinos do not have different odds for big or small gamblers. The above are brief outlines of the flaws in the present system. I could further elaborate on them if necessary. If these are not put right immediately, innocent investors will continue to lose money relentlessly in the stock market. It will lead to the stifling and eventual termination of all trading activities when the small investors lose all their money, and also lose faith in the market. When that day comes, even the foreign funds will pack up and go as there will be no players in the market for them to exploit. Companies too will find it pointless to list here as the value of their stocks will become worthless. They cannot use them as collaterals or to raise fund in the market. There will be no IPOs, or if any, probably will be fly by night companies coming in for a hit and run. This is the dire strait of our stock market. And everyone seems to be in a state of eternal bliss. Yes we have a lot of good rules and regulations governing trading in the market. The compliance people and regulators are efficient. But the flaws are systemic. Do something quick.