"It is the judgment of this independent advisory committee that individual investors deserve to get the best price when they - or the institutions representing them - invest their hard earned funds. It is wrong for the SEC to even consider giving this away. It is wrong for the executives of the institutions that are forwarding this proposal to break their trust with their own customers, in an effort to increase their bottom line.

"The research on this subject will not surprise anyone. Individual investors don't really know or understand the specifics of the Trade Through Rule (a better and more descriptive title would be the Best Price Rule), or how it protects them. How can a regulator propose that investors should get anything other than the best price?

"The proposal to let institutions 'opt out' of the rule that provides the real investor with the best price is totally antithetical to everything that Congress and the SEC have done to improve trust in the markets. Calls for increased speed have been recently addressed by the New York Stock Exchange, thereby eliminating the only argument that had even minimal merit. To gut this rule would do nothing but further weaken the integrity of the markets and the increasing trust in our regulators.

"Individual investors may not yet understand what is being contemplated, but if they are once again ignored in favor of large institutions, it will undermine much of what the exchanges, the regulators and Congress have done to rebuild their trust."