(January 4 – 16:30 ET) – The Securities and Exchange Commission says that outgoing chairman Arthur Levitt will deliver a major address on individual investor rights and responsibilities when he conducts his final Investors Town Meeting on January 16 in Philadelphia.

Levitt, the longest-serving chairman of the SEC and renowned champion of the retail investor, is stepping down in February. Since he took office in the summer of 1993, Levitt has conducted 41 town meetings in cities across the United States The SEC says Levitt considers his upcoming meeting the most important.

“We have witnessed one of the most powerful and striking developments in the history of our capital markets — the rise of the individual investor. I will remind individual investors that they are entitled to fundamental rights of fairness in our markets, and like those set forth by America’s founding fathers, these rights are enduring.”

Levitt counts creating the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Assistance, reforming financial accounting and fair disclosure among his most important efforts on behalf of small investors.
-IE Staff