How is this illegal? We used to do this all the time. Take a stock with high spreads, then just manipulate the NBBO on both sides. Pretty standard stuff at the prop shops back in the days, it's no longer as profitable though. I don't think he was doing HFT either, probably all manual. I can't believe they are persecuting for stuff like that, barred permanently from the industry? Crazy.
Curiously, there used to be a thread on ET regarding this subject, but apparently it was removed. There were already people talking about what Lightspeed was doing at the time, a few years back. I don't have the exact quotes, but here is a paraphrase I can give: " Various people who have used Lightspeed trading, for example have claimed that some firm related to Lightspeed trades against its open interest (client orders). Apparently, some firm may have access to Lightspeed's Open Aggregate Position Book. Lightspeed seems to be affiliated with Schonfeld Securities. Schonfeld is an HFT firm that is housed in the same building as Lightspeed. So, basically, it is possible that Lightspeed orders get front-run by Schonfeld (similar to what happened to Pipeline Trading), and that Schonfeld trades against Lightspeed's open interest. "
Another witch hunt being used by the USA government to go after, charge, fine and extort money out of those of their choosing while at the same time looking the other way and not charging the really big violators. Many market makers have engaged in a similar activity for generations. But, I agree with the fed that this activity should be stopped where there is an obvious planed and carried out conspiracy to defraud clients, traders, and investors. As for the HFT , I think our government and congress are using their own conspiracy to create a justification to impose more regulations, financial transaction taxes, and much wider quote spreads to effectively take traders out of the financial markets while at the same time creating a lot more wealth for the too big to fail financial firms. Congress wants individual traders to go get a real job producing real products and services that add to the USA GDP. I suspect all of the hype and crap about HFT is going to end very badly for individual traders working for themselves.
Make your money while you can. I would imagine there is no difference in their eyes between "spoofing" and simply pulling a bid because you changed your mind. Gotta love a police state.
Electing more Libertarians into our police state could help? There has to be a no-good reason for both the "Right" and the "Left" bad mouthing the Tea Party and Libertarians.
Just another witch hunt to keep the public happy. Meanwhile people like Jon Corzine get away with just about anything. Nobody dares to touch him for a damn good reason. When Bernie Madoff said he is small time he really knew what is was talking about. Only the little guys get screwed because everyone else is involved. That is the real world..