Blog posts with "market manipulation"

A new class of hackers has emerged: the Ponzi Hacker. Well maybe hackers perpetrating frauds isn't new, but assisting a billionaire to fool the Securities and Exchange Commission through clever coding as part of a much larger ponzi scheme is, well, novel. Yes, you guessed it, we're talking about good old Bernie Madoff. Here is a quote from the Register: "A federal grand jury has indicted two computer programmers on fraud and conspiracy charges for developing programs used by Bernard Madoff ...

  Lehman Brothers chapter 11 examiner's report has become available. Anton R. Valukas, chairman of the law firm Jenner & Block, performed the examination, and points the finger squarely at Lehman for culpability in the fall of the financial giant. Here are some quotes from the L.A. Times regarding the recent report:  "The uncompromising report should put to rest the self-serving claims by Lehman’s ex-Chairman Richard S. Fuld that the firm was destroyed by rumors, short selling, stoc...

In the continuing story of the hi-jinks of Raj Rajaratnam, a new indictment was filed this past Tuesday by a New York Federal grand jury. Yet another player has been fingered in this fiasco, a consultant by the name of Danielle Chiesi. Though earlier allegations estimated Raj's ill-gotten gains at around $25 million, the new indictment puts the amount at closer to $50 million.   Just like in the TV shows, the truth comes out when people start squealing. In this case, a tipper (as in provided...

  Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of the Galleon Group that I wrote about in my last post has also been charged by the SEC in Federal court. The SEC claims Rajaratnam's scheme was massive (as illustrated in the diagram above), and generated more than $25 million. Other companies allegedly involved are IBM, Intel, and Mckinsey & Company.     What makes this development interesting is that the SEC is suing in civil court, unlike what Federal Prosecutors have done in the Federal c...

Listed by Forbes as number 559 of the worlds richest people, Raj Rajaratnam was worth $1.3 billion. Sadly, some of those funds may have been ill-begotten. Yesterday the US Attorneys of the Southern District of New York charged Rajaratnam with securities fraud pursuant to the insider trading portions statutes 15 U.S.C. §§ 78j(b), 78ff; 17 C.F.R. §§ 240.10b-5, and 240.10b5-2. AllegedlyRajaratnam obtained inside information from another hedge fund operator, and traded upon it, making several...

Won Sok Lee, 39, an attorney, formerly of Riviera Beach (Singer Island), Florida, and Irvine, California, plead guilty yesterday afternoon to one count of wire fraud in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §1343 and one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §371. Lee is set to be sentenced on December 11, 2009 and faces a statutory maximum of 25 years in prison, a $500,000 fine, and restitution.   According to the FBI, Lee, along with John Kim and Yung ...

  The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud and other charges against General Electric today for misleading investors through their preparation of financial statements (See the SEC official release). Apparently GE used deceptive accounting methods to artificially increase its earnings reports. GE has neither admitted nor denied culpability, but have agreed to pay a $50 million dollar penalty to settle the charges. The fairness of this settlement is difficult to grasp consideri...

For more background on "flash" trading, see my prior post "Not Insider Trading? Part I." Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said earlier today that an SEC ban on flash trading was "imminent." Schumer said that in a discussion he had with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro, she personally promised him that the ban would be forthcoming. This is part of a broader investigation into questionable trading practices such as "dark pools," anonymous trading groups, and high frequenc...

See if you can figure this one out: if you are extremely rich and influential, then you can receive market news before the general public, and legally trade on it. What?! The service provided to these traders, known as "flashing," allows them to view orders submitted to exchanges, like the Nasdaq, before they are actually placed on the open market. The time period to review the information before the trade is placed is very short, fractions of a second, but enough time for an automated comput...

"Concerted rings" located in Eastern Europe and Asia have been identified as the perpetrators of complex market manipulating fraud schemes. The schemes involve criminals gaining access to individual brokerage accounts, or opening accounts with stolen identities. One permutation involved using compromised accounts to buy up shares of infrequently traded stocks to inflate their value, and then selling shares of the stock the criminals owned in their personal accounts that had been purchased at ...