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The purpose of this paper is to explain the Securities and Exchange Commission's recently proposed amendments to Rule 10b‐18 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that are intended to modernize Rule 10b‐18 to reflect changes in the market since the Rule's adoption.

The paper provides an overview of Rule 10b‐18, which provides an issuer that is buying its own stock a safe harbor from liability for market manipulation if the issuer satisfies the purchase, timing, price and volume conditions defined in Rule 10b‐18. It outlines the proposed amendments to the timing condition, price condition, limitation on disqualification, and the time in which the safe harbor is available in connection with an acquisition by a special purpose acquisition company.

The proposed amendments are intended to modernize Rule 10b‐18 to reflect changes in the market since the Rule's adoption.

The proposed amendments to the price condition and the disqualification provisions will likely be welcome by issuers and brokers who have been challenged by the evolution of market practices and technology, but the amendments to the timing condition and the restrictions on SPACs could result in fewer opportunities for issuers to purchase their own shares under the safe harbor.

The paper provides practical guidance from experienced securities lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent a person’s psychophysiological well-being is affected by misinformation and whether their level of information discernment has any positive or negative effect on the outcome.

Participants (n = 48) were randomly and blindly allocated to one of two groups: control group participants were told a person they were working with was a student; experimental group participants were additionally led to believe that this other participant had extreme religious views. This was both stigmatising and misinforming, as this other person was an actor. Participants completed a pre-screening booklet and a series of tasks. Participants’ cardiovascular responses were measured during the procedure.

Participants with high levels of information discernment, i.e. those who are curious, use multiple sources to verify information, are sceptical about search engine information, are cognisant of the importance of authority and are aware that knowledge changes and is contradictory at times exhibited an adaptive stress response, i.e. healthy psychophysiological outcomes and responded with positive emotions before and after a stressful task.

The findings indicate the potential harmful effects of misinformation and discuss how information literacy or Metaliteracy interventions may address this issue.

The first study to combine the hitherto unrelated theoretical areas of information discernment (a sub-set of information literacy), affective states (positive affect negative affect survey) and stress (challenge and threat cardiovascular measures).