Securities and Exchange Commissioner Stein, speaking on the same
day as Chair Clayton, in a speech that addressed principally market
structure issues also made a number of observations on the current
state of the markets. Commissioner Stein framed the market changes,
such as the decline in the number of IPOs, somewhat differently
than the Chair. She points out that framing matters as a
"tug-of-war" between investors (demanding information)
and issuers (seeking access to capital) may lead to viewing
regulatory choices as a tradeoff between disclosure and capital
formation. Such a view might not fully take into consideration the
degree to which the market as a whole rely on access to information
about private and public companies for price discovery and other
purposes. Commissioner Stein observed that from "2009 through
2014, investors supplied nearly $17 trillion in primary capital
– providing capital directly to companies in exchange for
debt or equity securities."
