The SEC may be behind schedule in promulgating regulations mandated by Federal Law, most notably relative to crowd funding under the JOBS Act, but it continues to discuss other possible initiatives to loosen regulation in an effort to spur the economy.

This Friday, February 1, the SEC will hold a public meeting of its Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies to consider several possible stimuli: increasing the “tick size” in trading shares of emerging companies (brokers claim they cannot sustain a trading market and make a proper profit unless the pricing moves in larger increments, creating a profit potential; recall that until fairly recently the minimum tick was 1/8th); encouraging  a new stock exchange for small companies; revisiting the scope of required disclosure.

There is no mention of “Broker-dealer Lite,” a registration scheme for intermediaries who raise capital (and perform M&A) for smaller companies; these intermediaries typically are not registered as broker dealers, an expensive and time-consuming process, and thus operate outside of the stated law regulating such functions. Emerging companies have argued that some sort of modest registration for such “finders” would spur business development, particularly at the pre-IPO stage, without imperiling the public.

If you want to observe the meeting on-line, or submit comments on-line to the meeting, go to the SEC home page; reference is file # 265-27.