Where should the line between profit and regulation be drawn?

THIS column on Dec 15, 2015, titled "Boosting liquidity: fundamental rethink needed", stated that it would not be an exaggeration to describe conditions in the local stock market at the time as extremely dire, possibly the worst they have been since the US sub-prime crash of 2008.

"The Straits Times Index is down 15 per cent for the year, which is bad enough, but perhaps more troubling is the steep drop in liquidity with daily averages now regularly below S$1 billion, the bulk of this being generated by trading in the 30 index components," it said.

On May 26 this year, in this column headlined "Even if it's different this time, efforts to rebuild trust in stocks must continue", it was stated that from the time 1,225 trading representatives (TRs) signed a petition to the Finance Minister in January 2015, conditions had steadily worsened - daily volume when the petition was written was around S$1.4 billion, in May it regularly fell below S$1 billion.