While the current financial system seems in turmoil and needs a overhaul, so does the exchanges. Sure there are supposed to be rules in the markets that help establish integrity, but for rules made, there seems to be exceptions to the rules and blind eyes turned to big problems. In the end, there is no real protection for the retail investor, for he has one tool to work with for every 10 the big market players have at their disposal. So, we are always at disadvantage and are constantly taking advantage of in these markets. Naked Shorting is supposed to be illegal and some even says it does not happen on the TSX Venture exchange, this is wrong! It does happen and their are provisions for it in the rules and their are exceptions, pg 28 of the actual document itself in this link and subsequent pages touch on the "unsettled trades".

http://www.complinet.com/file_store/pdf/rulebooks/TSX-V-RB_May04.pdf

It would appear MM,s and PO,s are allowed to creat phantom shares under the rules to get a stock to move down, and become unsettled trades when the shares are not bought back. It has to happen in the course of them trading, or there would not be any provisions for this in the rules under the buy-ins and such. This to me is unethical in the sense that a real share price or illusion of a share price is created by these mechanisms which can be manipulated to scare retail shareholders out of their shares. Why else would these big market participants be given these advantages over us retail, other than short and scare investors out of their shares when these schemes are taken too far. This contradicts integrity in the markets in my opinion. Some big changes need to be made.

If something like this has happened in our stock, what I just referred to above, I believe the exchanges have to be looked at and overhauled. Its not right for extra shares to appear out of thin air on a stock and any perpetrators that have done that should have to answer to their crime of manipulation. There are always paper trails, so the excuse of saying we don,t know who it is, is ludicrous. And if it is part of what happened to our sp, maybe an inquiry or investigation should look at this aspect of the trading to explain how a very tightly held stock was driven down ~90% when the vast majority of shareholders didn,t sell, only the ones that were afraid, and day after day of trading records showing deliberate step downs of the sp that nothing was ever done about. Here is a prime example of a company that has a naked short position on it that has developed from the TSXV, so proof that it does happen, take a look;

http://www.barkerminerals.com/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=459482&_Title=Barker-Reports-April-2011-Trading-and-Settlement-Summary

I believe that the whole system and rule books have to be rewritten and amends made to unfortunate shareholders of some of these stocks that were hit under these loop holes or market mechanisms that the exchange or their higher ups allowed to happen. This guy below has come up with 10 reasons why retail shareholders are few in the markets, I think he should add the above as #11.There are two on the firsrt page of the link, click on the colored "read more" to get the other 8.

http://www.mining.com/why-the-retail-investors-have-taken-their-marbles-and-gone-home-55735/?utm_source=digest-en-mining-120826&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digest

IMO