Norwegian Day Traders Convicted For Manipulating Computer Trading System

An anonymous reader submits news of the conviction of two Norwegian day traders, Svend Egil Larsen and Peder Veiby, who were on Wednesday fined and given suspended sentences (Norwegian court, Norwegian document) for cleverly working out — and cashing in on — the way the computerized trading system of Interactive Brokers subsidiary Timber Hill would respond to certain trades. They used the system's predictable responses to manipulate the value of low-priced stocks. The pair have gotten some sympathetic reactions from around the world, and promise to appeal.

In the USA

[srussia]

FTFA:In yesterday's conviction of the Norweigan traders, the prosecution said the pair had given "false and misleading signals about supply, demand and prices"

In the US the official body that does this is called the Working Group on Financial Markets [wikipedia.org].

They hate it when other people cut in on their action.

smartass

[Anonymous Coward]

"It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smartass."

Obligatory

[uvajed_ekil]

In soviet Russia, YOU control market.

Re:So many people miss the point

[Anonymous Coward]

and the machines they beat were honest and genuinely based on real belief in the value of the stocks

gtfo

Re:It's still market manipulation

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically stock market now is just another incarnation of COREWARS?

So a common folk unleashes her DWARF. Then the trading house unleashes ANTIDWARF to get all the money from DWARF. Then two norwegians run ANTIANTIDWARF and eat up both DWARF and ANTIDWARF profits.

Just wonderful :-/

Re:first

[The Grassy Knoll]

As it's a Norwegian-related story, shouldn't trolls be modded UP? .

Re:It's still market manipulation

[twoshortplanks]

you bribe the wrong guy and you get portion of led into your head.

How cyberpunk.

The next Wall Street will be boring...

[carmaa]

Synopsis:

while (true) {
    if (stockMarket.isDown()) {
        sueHumansRandomlyToCoverLosses();
    else {
        buyStock();
        laughAtHumanMinions();<br>
        printf("Greed is 01000111011011110110111101100100");
    }
}

Re:It's still market manipulation

[Sulphur]

Bernard Baruch noticed that the ball tended to land opposite to heavy bets in a roulette game. He placed his his bets likewise.

After a bit he was asked to leave, but until then he was making money on someone else's crooked wheel.

Re:Algorithmic trading?

[Schadrach]

Unless that group of people are wealthy enough and call themselves an "investment firm", in which case it would become OK.