- Retail United urges President Trump and DOJ to open an immediate, independent probe into SEC and FINRA for alleged failures protecting retail investors.
- They cite specific abuses—naked shorting, PFOF, dark pools, and the MMTLP debacle—demanding transparency, real-time short reporting, and tougher enforcement.
In a bold move that’s stirring up Wall Street chatter, a nonprofit group representing everyday investors has fired off a letter to President Donald J. Trump, the Attorney General, Congress, and Department of Justice officials.
Dated December 5, 2025, the missive from the Retail United Advocacy Group lays out a scathing critique of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), accusing them of dropping the ball on protecting retail folks from predatory practices.
This comes at a time when trust in the markets feels thinner than ever, and it’s got people talking about whether the new administration will finally crack down on what many see as systemic rot.
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The letter, shared publicly on X by @RetailUnitedFin and amplified by several retail investors, pulls no punches.
Details of the Letter
It starts by introducing the group as “a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for transparency, fairness, and an equal playing field in our financial markets, as well as the millions of retail investors worldwide who have been systematically disadvantaged by systemic failures in regulatory oversight.”
They explain their mission: founded to tackle inequities plaguing retail investors, they’re demanding immediate action to fix injustices that have gone unchecked for too long.
Diving deeper, the advocates point fingers at the SEC and FINRA for failing “in their core mandate to protect retail investors from predatory practices and ensure market integrity.”
Instead of shielding hardworking Americans pouring their savings into the market, these regulators have allegedly allowed “blatant corruption, market manipulation, and exploitative tactics to flourish unchecked.”
Specific gripes include naked short selling—where shares are sold without actually borrowing them—payment for order flow (PFOF) setups that favor big players’ profits over fair trades, and dark pools that hide real market action.
These issues, they argue, lead to “artificial price suppression, inflated short interest, and billions in losses for retail participants, while institutional players reap undue benefits.”
The group doesn’t stop at general complaints. They highlight how criticisms of the SEC’s recent policies show a “troubling shift away from robust investor protections toward favoring industry interests, threatening capital formation and economic stability.”
Drawing from history, they note patterns in past financial crises where the SEC and FINRA dismantled regulations and failed to spot abuses, showing a “systemic reluctance to enforce rules effectively.”
What really amps up the urgency is their demand for an “immediate, thorough, and independent investigation into the SEC and FINRA’s practices.”
They list key areas to probe:
- Failure to address market manipulation and naked shorting, spotlighting high-profile cases like GameStop (GME) where retail investors got hammered.
- Lack of enforcement against predatory shorting without proper locates or borrows by hedge funds and market makers.
- Conflicts of interest, like the revolving door between regulators and the firms they oversee, which erodes impartiality.
- Inadequate protections for retail investors, backed by ongoing complaints about unsuitable recommendations, excessive fees, and subpar execution standards.
They insist this investigation be transparent, involve input from groups like theirs, and lead to real fixes—things like plugging loopholes in Regulation SHO, better real-time short position reporting, and tougher penalties for violators.
Wrapping it up, they emphasize that “retail investors are the backbone of America’s economy, and their voices must no longer be ignored.”
They request swift action and ongoing dialogue, signing off on behalf of millions worldwide.
This letter isn’t coming out of nowhere.
It’s part of a growing chorus from retail investors who’ve felt burned by the system, especially in the wake of meme stock crazes and other market upheavals.
But to really understand the frustration, let’s zoom in on one particularly sore spot that’s left thousands of investors feeling completely sidelined: the MMTLP debacle.
The MMTLP Saga: A Community Left in Limbo Amid Allegations of Regulatory Neglect
If you’ve been following retail investor woes, the MMTLP story is a doozy—one that’s been called one of the biggest Wall Street frauds in recent memory.
MMTLP stood for Meta Materials Inc.’s preferred shares, which were set to spin off into a private company called Next Bridge Hydrocarbons.
Trading was humming along until December 2022, when FINRA suddenly halted it just days before the spin-off, citing an “extraordinary event.”
What followed was chaos: shares were delisted, converted to private holdings, but many investors claim massive naked short positions meant there were more shares out there than should exist, leaving them with essentially worthless assets they couldn’t sell or settle.
The real kicker came when unearthed communications showed the SEC and FINRA had been discussing potential fraud tied to MMTLP well before the plug was pulled.
For instance, FOIA logs reveal emails referencing “MMTLP Fraud” in communications between SEC staff and FINRA officials like Sam Draddy, Richard Boyle, and Jay Gibbon, dated around the time of the halt.
One comment submitted to the SEC in March 2025 highlights how unscrupulous activity around MMTLP “hit Sam Dreddy’s fraud radar” — just days before the trading stop—and yet, requests for a blue sheet audit (a tool to track trades and uncover manipulation) were denied by FINRA and the SEC.
Even more damning, a Change.org petition on the scandal states that “the SEC was aware of potentially fraudulent activities affecting MMTLP as early as 2021, well before the December 9, 2022, trading halt.”
Grassroots FOIA campaigns swarmed the SEC, pulling out details that fueled outrage, with hashtags like #FinraFraud going viral as investors pieced together how regulators seemingly knew about issues but let the situation explode.
The upshot? Around 65,000 retail investors were left holding the bag, their investments frozen in a private entity with no liquidity, while alleged counterfeit shares from naked shorting went unresolved.
Campaigns have sent waves of letters demanding DOJ intervention, but so far, the community feels ignored—sidelined in a system that seems to protect big institutions over the little guy.
Missouri officials even put FINRA in their sights over the shutdown, questioning the handling of this “meme stock” mess.
Tying Back to the Bigger Picture: Why This Matters Now
Cases like GME and MMTLP aren’t isolated flukes; they’re symptoms of deeper problems the Retail United letter is begging Trump to address.
With the president fresh in office, there’s hope—or at least pressure—for real change.
Will we see a full-blown investigation? Could it lead to reforms that level the playing field?
Investors are watching closely, and if history’s any guide, ignoring this groundswell could erode faith in the markets even further.
As the letter puts it, “We the people have had enough. The trust in our financial system is eroding, and without swift intervention, the divide between retail investors and powerful institutions will only widen.”
It’s a rallying cry that’s resonating, and with social media buzzing—check out the original post on X for the full letter—it’s hard to see how regulators can keep brushing it off.
Also Read: Short Sellers Are Now Throwing One Another Under the Bus
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