Reading the complaint. There were days when he was buying and selling (getting filled on) around 100,000 ES lots. Around 5 or 10% of the daily ES volume for the time. And doing upto 42% of all the cancel volume on the ES. Clearly he was paying lots of fees to his clearing firms and the CME. They all must of known what he was doing all these years. A few warning emails to cover their own asses. I bet they wont be handing over the fees earned from all his trades.
Ultimate it's always the small guy that will get caught and hanged. The institutions will always keep doing what they do with complete impunity.
Is there a piece of criminal legislation against spoofing as market manipulation in Germany or the EU? If it is the case, Paul Rotter must be crapping his pants...It is becoming so trendy to put a spoofer behind bars that European regulators will want their piece of cake...
According to the CFTC complaint, he cleared via four different FCMs over the years. FCM A (April 2010 to October 2011) FCM B (November 2011 to January 2012) FCM C (July 2012 to August 2012) FCM D (August 2012 to present) Bloomberg reported that FCM A was MF Global.
Quote from the article: "The flash crash happened when Sarao's algorithm had been turned off, and the price should have been rebounding..." http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-21/guy-trading-at-home-caused-the-flash-crash Best reader's response: " In effect, the only plausible reason for regulators to clamp down on someone for NOT trading, 5 years after the fact, is that he was interfering with the HFTs. The HFTs paid good money for their special access, and their rights have to be protected. OK, it makes sense now. The regulators are not stupid or drunk. just looking out for their next revolving-door promotion."
I must say that I really do feel for this guy despite my sniggers over his rather frugal lifestyle (i.e. 3 bed crap semi house and beat up green car). Must be going through a terrifying ordeal.
Admitedly, I still don't see how putting in a ton of sell limits crashes a market...but if the exchange was that concerned it could have simply charged him a dollar per contract for unfilled and removed orders.