New York (CNN Business) - Three JPMorgan Chase traders in gold and other precious metals have been charged with alleged market manipulation by the US Department of Justice. The alleged conduct spanned eight years, the Justice Department said Monday. The government charged Gregg Smith, an executive director, and Michael Nowak, a managing director and head of the bank's global precious metals desk. Both were current employees as of Monday morning, government officials said. The third person charged is Christopher Jordan, a former JPMorgan employee. JPMorgan declined to comment on Monday. Instead it referred to a previous public filing in which it said it "is responding to and cooperating with these investigations." Between 2008 and 2016, Smith, Nowak and Jordan allegedly manipulated prices of gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange and the CME Commodity Exchange. "Smith, Nowak, Jordan, and their co-conspirators allegedly engaged in a complex scheme to trade precious metals in a way that negatively affected the natural balance of supply-and-demand," William F. Sweeney Jr., FBI assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York field office, said in a statement. Nowak's lawyer, David Meister and Jocelyn Strauber, said in an emailed statement, "it's truly regrettable that the DOJ decided to go forward with a prosecution of Mike Nowak, who has done nothing wrong. We look forward to representing him at trial and expect him to be fully exonerated." James Benjamin, an attorney for Jordan, said in a statement, "Chris Jordan is innocent of these heavy-handed charges, and we intend to defend him vigorously." The lawyer for Smith declined to comment. The government claims the defendants engaged in "widespread spoofing, market manipulation and fraud" by placing trade orders they planned to cancel before executing them, according to a Justice Department statement. The aim "was to trick" other traders into buying and selling futures contracts at prices and at times they wouldn't have otherwise done, the Justice Department alleges. "We will follow the facts wherever they lead, whether further up in the banks or to other institutions," said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski in a call with reporters. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed a civil enforcement action against Smith and Nowak on Monday. The Justice Department said the indictments are the latest in a series of cases involving commodities fraud that have resulted in eight guilty pleas and one 36-month prison sentence, with half a dozen others pending. One case ended in acquittal and one in a mistrial. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/16/investing/jpmorgan-precious-metals-price-manipulation/index.html
That's illegal, ell, i thought that was standard operating procedure for those trading other people's money.
If they are found guilty, give 'em the chair. I hate these bastards. I see it on the price ladder all the damned time.
I'll echo @easymon1 's surprise. WTF? You always see that crap in the DOM. What makes these guys different enough to prosecute?
Nah, that's only for people without money. The worst thing these guys will get is a chair... at a less-prestigious table in the JPM cafeteria for a month. And that's only if they get successfully prosecuted. It's not a crime if you do it; it's only a crime if you get caught. That's not well regarded.
Everyday we hear retail traders complain about the markets being manipulated or corrupt to explain their trade losses. Most respond via saying you just don't have an edge and stop making excuses for the bad trading plan or it works great in simulation trading but trades poorly in real money trading. Then you hear about those traders using spoofing, algorithms and fraud to manipulate the markets for many years. Unfortunately, those "other traders" being tricked...its us retail traders. In today's technology advances, these guys and their spoofing algorithms are just the tip of the iceberg. I feel sorry for DOM traders and other types of retail traders because how often do chart traders see something on the charts that just doesn't make sense or the technical analysis (chart reading) just doesn't make any sense... Its simple, price manipulation. Its everywhere...we've heard about the financial cartel institutional traders using bloomberg chat rooms to manipulate Forex currencies...manipulation in the billions of dollars. We heard about Navinder Singh Sarao and his spoofing algorithm in the Emini ES futures that caused a flash crash in the markets back in 2010. These are only a few out of many. Seriously, almost every day I see something weird occurring in the price action that's frustrating. Now we have the Pres. Trump well timed tweets about China/Tariffs...I wouldn't be surprise if he has someone outside the Whitehouse placing trades for him. wrbtrader
Believe me, if he has, it would be the biggest news on CNN tomorrow. Possibly bigger than the Russian Collusion.
We'll never know if there's someone (a pro trader) that gets prior notice about the time Pres. Trump will make those tweets. Hey Donald, It's now 10:07am...I got your Short 500 contracts Eminis ready to go @ 10:08am and another 500 contracts @ 10:09am. Go ahead and post that tweet about raising tariffs @ 10:10am on China. You can retract your comments after I close the positions for big profits. Profits will be held offshore in which you can collect when you're no longer President. Nobody believe the financial cartel was doing the same in Forex in those Bloomberg chat rooms until many years later and billions of dollars later. Heck, the WhiteHouse can always bring up the fact that Hilary Clinton use to trade Cattle futures profitably when she was first lady of Arkansas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_cattle_futures_controversy wrbtrader
To put it in Brooklynese, it would be somebody whose balls he's got locked up in the safe. I mean... the dude made a living ripping off Jersey contractors. Whatever you think about him, you have to keep that in mind.