On November 23, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published its "Strategic Plan" for fiscal years 2022 through 2026, which provides an overview of the SEC's planned initiatives and strategic goals over the upcoming four-year period. The SEC's latest Strategic Plan, which is required to be published every four years by the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, outlines three primary goals for the upcoming period: (1) protecting the investing public against fraud, manipulation and misconduct, (2) developing and implementing a robust regulatory framework to keep pace with evolving markets, business models and technologies and (3) supporting a workforce that is diverse, equitable, inclusive and equipped to advance the SEC's objectives.

The SEC's announcement of the publication of its Strategic Plan is available here, and the full text of the Strategic Plan is available here. Of note, the Strategic Plan cited increasing volatility, often driven by outside forces such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the continuing evolution of financial markets, often without a corresponding evolution in regulatory oversight such as with the rise of cryptocurrencies in recent years, as existential threats to the investing public the SEC must seek to address. According to its Strategic Plan, these existential threats will be addressed via the SEC "pursu[ing] new authorities from Congress where needed" and increasing the funding and resources available to regulators tasked with monitoring such rapidly developing areas of the financial markets, among other means.