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Article: Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts | Zero Hedge

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Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts | Zero Hedge

Tyler Durden, 01 October 2016

For Deutsche Bank, when it rains, it pours, even when everyone tries to come to its rescue.

One day after its stock soared from all time lows, following what so far appears to have been a fabricated report sourced by AFP which relied on Twitter as a source that the DOJ would reduce its RMBS settlement amount with Deutsche Bank from $14 billion to below $6 billion (and which neither the DOJ nor Deutsche Bank have confirmed for obvious reasons), moments ago Bloomberg reported that six current and former managers of Deutsche Bank, including Michele Faissola, Michele Foresti and Ivor Dunbar, were charged in Milan for colluding to falsify the accounts of Italy’s third-biggest bank, Monte Paschi (which itself is so insolvent it is currently scrambling to finalize a private sector bailout) and manipulate the market. Two former executives at Nomura Holdings Inc. and five at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena were also charged. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts | Zero Hedge”

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Article: GOLDMAN SACHS NZ TRADING UNDER SCRUTINY IN MARKET MANIPULATION TRIAL

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GOLDMAN SACHS NZ TRADING UNDER SCRUTINY IN MARKET MANIPULATION TRIAL

BusinessDesk, 26 September 2016

Trading by Goldman Sachs has come under the scrutiny of lawyers representing Milford Asset Management portfolio fund manager Mark Warminger in a High Court trial on market manipulation.

Duncan Rutherford, who headed Goldman’s securities team in New Zealand until it was restructured earlier this year, was giving evidence today as part of the first week of the Auckland trial brought by the market regulator, the Financial Markets Authority.

Warminger is accused of making trades on 10 occasions that breached securities law prohibiting trading that is not for a genuine commercial purpose and creates an artificial appearance in the market.

The first cause of action brought by the FMA relates to trading in Fisher & Paykel Healthcare shares on May 27, 2014, where Warminger is said to have bought shares to push up the price of the stock from its opening price of $4.32 to $4.35 through five small buy trades and then later selling 500,000 shares at an allegedly manipulated higher price off-market.

Warminger’s counsel Marc Corlett QC questioned why Goldman Sachs also sold shares in F&P Healthcare in the market’s opening auction that day – 15,000 shares at $4.32 and then 10,000 at $4.33 even though it was “short” in its own facilitation account of 463,000 shares. The firm made a loss on the trades. The stock price had been volatile closing at $4.35 the previous day and in the “4.20s” the day before that.

Rutherford said it wasn’t unusual for the firm to do that given the “bigger picture” of its trading strategy for that day and the commissions it received on trading activity. It also did so in the belief Warminger would be a potential seller that day, he said.

The idea of the facilitation account is not simply to make profits on the shares it trades, he said, but it was part of a suite of services it offered clients and acted like a “bucket” that facilitated trades between clients and increased liquidity on the often volatile New Zealand market.

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Article: BIG PLAYERS, LITTLE STOCKS, AND NAKED SHORTS

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BIG PLAYERS, LITTLE STOCKS, AND NAKED SHORTS

David Dayen, 23 September 2016

CHRIS DIIORIO HAD lost a million dollars when the penny stock he was betting on shed 98 percent of its value in a matter of weeks. But when he looked deeper, he found this wasn’t a typical penny stock pump-and-dump scheme. He was determined to get to the bottom of it.

For one thing, there were two huge companies involved. Continue reading “Article: BIG PLAYERS, LITTLE STOCKS, AND NAKED SHORTS”

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Article: Jim Chanos: I’m still short Valeant and not about to quit

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Jim Chanos: I’m still short Valeant and not about to quit

Tom DiChristopher, 13 September 2016

Short seller Jim Chanos on Tuesday said he is still short shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and he’s not about to close out his bet against the drug company anytime soon.

“We started shorting the stock in the low $100s, added to it in the $200s, choked on it at $290 but stayed short and added to the stock as recently as early this year,” the Kynikos Associates founder told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report” on the sidelines of the Delivering Alpha conference in New York. Continue reading “Article: Jim Chanos: I’m still short Valeant and not about to quit”

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Article: Deutsche Bank’s $10-Billion Scandal

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Deutsche Bank’s $10-Billion Scandal

Ed Caesar, 22 August 2016

Almost every weekday between the fall of 2011 and early 2015, a Russian broker named Igor Volkov called the equities desk of Deutsche Bank’s Moscow headquarters. Volkov would speak to a sales trader—often, a young woman named Dina Maksutova—and ask her to place two trades simultaneously. In one, he would use Russian rubles to buy a blue-chip Russian stock, such as Lukoil, for a Russian company that he represented. Usually, the order was for about ten million dollars’ worth of the stock. In the second trade, Volkov—acting on behalf of a different company, which typically was registered in an offshore territory, such as the British Virgin Islands—would sell the same Russian stock, in the same quantity, in London, in exchange for dollars, pounds, or euros. Both the Russian company and the offshore company had the same owner. Deutsche Bank was helping the client to buy and sell to himself. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank’s $10-Billion Scandal”

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Article: Robot Funds and Bank Regulation

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Robot Funds and Bank Regulation

Matt Levine, 04 August 2016

What’s Steve Cohen up to? Stamford Harbor Capital, the new firm started by Steven Cohen and led by a longtime deputy, is working with a third-party marketing company that’s meeting with potential clients to gauge interest in investment vehicles that could be started as soon as 2018. Continue reading “Article: Robot Funds and Bank Regulation”

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Article: FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal

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FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal

Rupert Neate in New York and Jill Treanor in London, 20 July 2016

Mark Johnson and a colleague allegedly defrauded clients and ‘manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank’

A senior HSBC banker has been arrested by the FBI as he attempted to board a transatlantic flight and charged him with fraudulently rigging a multibillion-dollar currency exchange deal.

Mark Johnson, a British citizen and HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange trading, and a colleague are accused of “defrauding clients” and alleged to have “corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank”.

He was arrested on Tuesday night shortly before he was due to fly to London from New York’s JFK airport, and was due to be formally charged by a judge at Brooklyn federal court later on Wednesday. He was later released on bail.

A second Briton, Stuart Scott, who was HSBC’s European head of foreign exchange trading in London until December 2014, is accused of the same crimes. A warrant was issued for Scott’s arrest.

They are the first people to be charged in connection with the US government’s long-running investigation into bankers’ alleged rigging of the $5.3tn (£4tn) per day forex market.

“The defendants allegedly betrayed their client’s confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank,” said the US assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell. “This case demonstrates the [US Department of Justice’s] criminal division’s commitment to hold corporate executives, including at the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions, responsible for their crimes.”

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Article: Israeli Businessman Nochi Dankner Found Guilty of Stock Manipulation

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Israeli Businessman Nochi Dankner Found Guilty of Stock Manipulation

Jasmin Gueta, 04 July 2016

Nochi Dankner, who was for a decade one of the most powerful business tycoons in Israel, was found guilty on Monday of stock manipulation and other securities-related offenses.

Broke tycoon ejected from Tel Aviv restaurant. In first testimony, Dankner denies role in alleged share manipulation. Nochi Dankner survives South America helicopter crash. The maximum punishment for the offenses is five years’ imprisonment.

In a 280-page decision, Judge Khaled Kabub of the Tel Aviv District Court found Dankner guilty of all the charges that had been brought against him, which centered on his manipulating the share price of his publicly traded IDB Holding Corporation ahead of a secondary offering of its shares in February 2012. Dankner consistently denied any wrongdoing. Continue reading “Article: Israeli Businessman Nochi Dankner Found Guilty of Stock Manipulation”

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Article: How Steven Cohen Built, and Almost Lost, His $12.7 Billion Net Worth

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How Steven Cohen Built, and Almost Lost, His $12.7 Billion Net Worth

Kay Jenkins, 11 June 2016

Steven A Cohen has a net worth of $12.7 billion, a figure that grew from a relatively small $25 million seed investment into his hedge fund, SAC Capital, in 1992. The firm was wildly successful in the 1990s and 2000s, minting billions for Cohen and his investors until an SEC investigation into insider trading effectively shuttered the firm in 2012.

Cohen may have fallen from grace, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of the game forever. In fact, some think he just may be getting started. Continue reading “Article: How Steven Cohen Built, and Almost Lost, His $12.7 Billion Net Worth”

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Article: Russian Police Bust Alleged Bank Malware Gang

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Russian Police Bust Alleged Bank Malware Gang

Mathew J. Schwartz, 02 June 2016

Russian authorities have arrested about 50 people in connection with an ongoing investigation into a hacker group that’s suspected of unleashing malware-enabled hack attacks against customers of major Russian financial institutions. Continue reading “Article: Russian Police Bust Alleged Bank Malware Gang”

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Article: The Deutsche Bank gold manipulation scandal

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The Deutsche Bank gold manipulation scandal

Leonard Melmano, 02 June 2016

Sophisticated British criminals exploited vulnerabilities in Australia’s search engine and cryptocurrency infrastructure to dupe small investors, lured by the promise of high-yield funds badged by some of the finance world’s most trusted brands.

The complex scheme involved stolen identities and fraudulent prospectuses that claimed to represent high-yield investment funds run by global managers Citibank, Nomura, and IFM Investors. It has ensnared millions from unsuspecting victims who sought better returns as interest rates collapsed during the COVID-19 crisis. Continue reading “Article: The Deutsche Bank gold manipulation scandal”

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Article: Flash Crashes, Algo Manipulation & Demystifying Market Abuse Regulation

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Flash Crashes, Algo Manipulation & Demystifying Market Abuse Regulation

Roger Aitken, 26 May 2016

It’s conjecture as to when the next flash crash might occur. But with the EU Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) coming into force on 3 July 2016, investment firms and operators of trading venues are heading for yet another regulatory change. As if there were not enough regulations and red tape confronting firms from a slew of edicts from Brussels and elsewhere in other jurisdictions.

One could reel off regulatory acronyms such as MiFIR, REMIT to counter market abuse in the energy markets and MAD to name a few. This time though it is with a focus of manipulation of algorithms being labelled as ‘market abuse’.

Driving the latest regulation on top of the welter of others is a need to establish a more uniform and stronger framework in order to preserve market integrity, to avoid potential regulatory arbitrage as well as to ensure accountability in the event of attempted manipulation. Add in providing more legal certainty and – in the view of the legislators – less regulatory complexity for market participants and compliance officers have their hands full. Continue reading “Article: Flash Crashes, Algo Manipulation & Demystifying Market Abuse Regulation”

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Article: Overstock founder Patrick Byrne fuels Jonathan Johnson gubernatorial campaign

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Overstock founder Patrick Byrne fuels Jonathan Johnson gubernatorial campaign

Dennis Romboy, 20 May 2016

Overstock.com founder and former CEO Patrick Byrne continues to fuel Jonathan Johnson’s campaign for governor with unprecedented amounts of cash.

Byrne dropped another $250,000 into the Republican candidate’s bank account this week, bringing his total personal contributions to $400,000 so far. He also gave another $200,000 to Johnson’s Promote Liberty PAC, with at least $50,000 of that going to the campaign.

Donations to Johnson, the Overstock board chairman, from other sources since the last reporting period in mid-April total about $47,000, according to financial disclosure reports. Continue reading “Article: Overstock founder Patrick Byrne fuels Jonathan Johnson gubernatorial campaign”

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Article: Supreme Court Decides Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning

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Supreme Court Decides Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning

Chuck Webber, Jeffrey P. Justman, James G. Martignon, 05 May 2016

On May 16, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning, No. 14-1132, holding that that the “arising under” test for federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 determines whether federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction under section 27 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) of lawsuits to enforce liabilities or duties created by that Act. (The Court did not address the portion of section 27 that gives federal courts exclusive jurisdiction of “violations of this chapter or the rules and regulations thereunder” with respect to criminal and regulatory enforcement actions.)

Greg Manning owned stock in Escala Group, Inc., a company traded on the NASDAQ. Between 2006 and 2007, Escala’s share price plummeted and Manning lost most of his investment. Manning blamed Merrill Lynch and other financial institutions for devaluing Escala during that period through “naked short sales” of its stock, under which one borrows stock from a broker and sells it to a buyer on the open market, but never delivers the shares back to the buyer. “Naked” short sales of stock may be designed to drive down a company’s stock price, and are accordingly regulated by Regulation SHO. Continue reading “Article: Supreme Court Decides Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning”

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Article: SCOTUS Send Merrill Lynch Case to NJ State

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SCOTUS Send Merrill Lynch Case to NJ State

ADAM KLASFELD, 06 May 2016

Merrill Lynch and other brokerage firms must face a state court case that says illegal naked short sales cost investors more than $800 million, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. The shareholders brought their case four years ago in New Jersey over the Fortune 500 memorabilia company Spectrum Group International, then known as Escala Group. One of the investors, Greg Manning, said “naked short selling” sent his more than 2 million Escala shares into a nosedive. In typical short sales, investors speculate that the price of a stock will decline and purchase securities that they do not currently own in order to profit from the fall. Securities laws and regulations mandate that a short seller borrow the stock it sold and deliver it within four days of sale. Continue reading “Article: SCOTUS Send Merrill Lynch Case to NJ State”

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