[quickthrowman]

You can construct a synthetic long or short position with options [0], so those would need to be removed as well. Options are much too useful for market participants (market makers in particular), so your idea is dead in the water.

[0] For US equity options, if you sell a put and simultaneously buy a call at the same strike price, you have a synthetic long that acts like owning 100 shares of the underlying asset (no dividends, but that’s already priced in to the options).

Buy a put and simultaneously sell a call at the same strike price and you have a synthetic short that acts like being short 100 shares of the underlying asset.

[sgc]

The proposal is because I don't think a bunch of people playing games with money provide any sort of value. If you could only buy a valuable company in such a way that options and HFT trades were excluded, then you would just have to invest in the company and support its growth. That is the goal of the structure. I completely agree with you: If the bloodsuckers don't have to do so, they never will. I would prefer it were law, but second best would be a place where companies could opt out of the anti-culture of wall street and still be publicly traded.