CNBC: Regular Investors Are Cut out of a Major Financial Market and the SEC Chief Wants to Change That

The head of the SEC says more needs to be done to make it easier for companies to go public and that his office is taking a “fresh look” at allowing Main Street investors access to the private capital markets.

In a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Monday, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said the lack of more IPOs and the inability of most of the Main Street investing public to access private markets was a “growing concern.”

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Bloomberg Law: Corporate Debt Surge Being Watched by Regulators, SEC Chief Says

The head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said his agency and other regulators are keeping taps on emerging risks in the fast-growing corporate debt market, highlighting assets that could he susceptible to liquidity shocks.

Years of low-interest rates and pressure on banks to hold less corporate debt has pushed more of it into investment funds, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in prepared remarks at the Economic Club of New York on Sept. 9. The trend isn’t surprising, he said, but the shift away from the regulated banking system has made it more difficult for government watchdogs to monitor...

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ThinkAdvisor: SEC's Clayton Still Troubled by Potential Manipulation of Bitcoin Prices

Don’t hold your breath for the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a Bitcoin ETF, or any other cryptocurrency ETF, anytime soon. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said as much at an appearance Monday before the Economic Club of New York.

In the brief Q&A session that followed a speech, Clayton said, “When you put it [Bitcoin] into a product and make it a security, then we have to worry about whether it trades appropriately or not and whether it can be held appropriately or not. … It troubles me that people look at the trading on these venues and think it has the same level of protection that you have in the equity market in the U.S., on Nasdaq and NYSE. Nothing could be further than the truth.”

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