Date:    03/21/2000  9:11 PM

Subject: Proposed Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure)

From:  Bradley R. Hamer
            Austin, Texas
            
     
Affiliation:  none (individual investor)
     
     
Chairman Levitt:
     
I am writing to express my support for Proposed Regulation FD, 
concerning Fair Disclosure.  In my opinion, this is not only a matter of 
basic fairness, as you have so correctly noted, but also of property 
rights.  For the sake of illustration, I'd like to extend the logic of 
the Securities Industry Association's position to a couple of other 
arenas:
     
(1)  The SIA would seemingly support the notion that full disclosure 
requirements for real estate transactions should only apply to 
purchasers of homes valued at X dollars or more.  People buying a 
mansion would have the right to know that the foundation is cracked 
before they closed on the transaction, whereas people buying a modest 
two-bedroom home would not have this right, and would instead have to 
find out after they moved in.
     
(2)  An automobile manufacturer would, according to SIA logic, be 
entitled to select which customers would receive a recall notice 
concerning a serious defect with its cars, and which would not.  Perhaps 
only persons who had previously purchased another car from that 
automaker would be notified, as a reward for being return customers, or 
perhaps the same group would
specifically not be notified, on the grounds that they would be the most 
likely to purchase another of the automaker's cars in the future and 
might be scared off.  In either case, a large group of people is left 
driving cars known to be defective, and the SIA would not seem to have a 
problem with this.
     
It is important for all involved to remember that when I buy stock in a 
company, I OWN the company.  A portion of that company is MY PROPERTY; 
it BELONGS TO ME.  Just like the purchaser of the two-bedroom home or 
the at-risk car owner left in the dark in the above illustrations, I 
surely have the right to know about potential problems with MY PROPERTY 
and its value that are already known to others, and to know about them 
if at all possible BEFORE some disaster, be it financial or physical, 
befalls me.  The current practice of selective disclosure both denies me 
that right and precipitates the disaster (a major decline in the value 
of the stock).  Please protect the individual investor and eliminate 
selective disclosure.
     
Bradley R. Hamer