Athena Capital Research fined for HFT
US authorities sued a New York-based company called Athena Capital Research, accusing her of illegal price manipulation on the NASDAQ electronic exchange. According to the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission, this is the first time a firm has been punished in the United States, which carries out superfast trading. The company agreed to pay a fine of $1 million. As it turned out later, company from June to December 2009 manipulated stock prices, almost every day making a large number of trading operations in the last two seconds of the exchange. To carry out these transactions, she used a super-fast computer and a special electronic transaction algorithm. And even despite the relatively small size of the company, the share of transactions for this company came out solid - about 70% all transactions, which were before the closure of the site. “If companies, performing high-frequency trading, will cross the line and cheat, we will prosecute them legally, how do we pursue anyone, who manipulates the markets”, – warns the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission Mary Joe White. She also says, that in case of repeated violation of the rules by this company, even tougher sanctions will be applied. but, although Athena Capital Research agreed to pay the fine, publicly she does not admit her guilt. AND, as was expected, promises to strictly comply with all requirements in the future, which are presented by the federal authorities to bidders for …