Tag: Citadel Scandal (Page 1 of 13)

“The Game is Rigged”, Says Ex-Citadel Data Scientist

Ex-Citadel employee Patrick McConlogue says the market is rigged.
Market News Daily: Ex-Citadel employee Patrick McConlogue says the market is rigged.

Patrick McConlogue, an ex-Citadel Data Scientist said during the ‘meme stock’ frenzy that the stock market is rigged, claiming he helped design it.

“The game is not fair and it never has been. Individual investors, even when operating in a swarm, are destined to lose. How do I know? I helped design the game.”

Not many investors know this, but Patrick actually breaks down how Citadel and other hedge funds were able to make billions back in only weeks from halts.

In this article, I’m going to share his words and knowledge in the industry directly with you.

Share this article to raise awareness of the market injustices ‘experts’ have claimed were never true.

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Ex-Citadel Employee Reveals Rigged Trading Game

Ex-Citadel employee Patrick McConlogue says the market is rigged.

Patrick McConlogue appeared on Fox Business during the ‘meme stock’ frenzy of 2021 when retail investors created one of the biggest scares in Wall Street history.

GameStop and AMC shareholders were able to create panic on Wall Street by heavily buying shares of the overleveraged shorted stocks.

As share prices soared, short sellers experienced massive losses.

GameStop was able to put Melvin Capital out of business, but Patrick McConlogue says other hedge funds were able to make back billions in losses during the halt.

The halts allowed hedge funds to enter AMC and GameStop knowing shares would plummet, allowing them to capitalize on the deflation of the price.

Patrick says the rules of the game also heavily favor hedge funds, something retail investors have urged SEC Chairman Gary Gensler for years to change.

“I respect many of my colleagues, the problem isn’t the people, it’s the rules of the game which heavily favor the funds.”

Below is ex-Citadel Data Scientist Patrick McConlogue’s story.

AMC Stock: The SEC Has Now Violated Threshold Rule

Patrick McConlogue Says the Stock Market is Rigged

Ex-Citadel employee Patrick McConlogue says the market is rigged.
Ex-Citadel employee Patrick McConlogue says the market is rigged.

“The game is not fair and it never has been. Individual investors, even when operating in a swarm, are destined to lose.

How do I know? I helped design the game.

A few years ago, I worked at the massive hedge fund Citadel. The multi-billion dollar fund was caught up in this week’s scandal for bailing out hedge fund Melvin Capital after everyday traders on Robinhood appeared close to liquidating the fund through mass buying of the GameStop stock $GME.

My role at Citadel was as an engineer in Long Term Quantitative Strategies. The entire department, filled with programmers and compliance officers, is dedicated to something called ‘alpha’ which determines the buying strategy of the fund.

I was responsible for innovative proprietary technology that capitalizes on public data faster than any other hedge fund. It’s a classic situation of machines against humans. I respect many of my colleagues, the problem isn’t the people, it’s the rules of the game which heavily favor the funds.

A group of traders on the r/WallStreetBets Reddit thread, now consisting of over 8.6M members, noticed that someone had overly “shorted” the GameStop $GME stock.

They decided it was the perfect time to buy. It was only around $18 per share and easily affordable for the common investor who kept buying, driving up the price of the stock.

As the buying frenzy continued the hedge funds who had taken the opposite position started to hemorrhage money.. BIG money.

The small investors celebrated their success online as news broke that the hedge fund Melvin Capital Management had lost so much on the $GME short position that they had to be bailed out by bigger hedge funds.

While the markets were closed Melvin Capital’s sinking battleship received an emergency infusion of $2.75 billion from Citadel and Point72.”

‘Meme Stock’ Halts

Ex-Citadel employee Patrick McConlogue says the market is rigged.

“On Thursday morning, Robinhood — the commission-free stock trading app used by small investors — suddenly shut down buys on $GME and a few other stocks that were under siege.

Only sell orders went through, reversing the trend, driving the stock prices back down and shoring up the hedge funds’ sinking ships. Remember, when the stock price goes down, the people who hold the “shorts” make money.

This started a chain reaction. Other retail trading platforms like E*Trade and TD AmeriTrade began freezing the stock for individual investors. But hedge funds own supercomputers.

They have direct access to stock markets. While small investors were frozen the hedge funds traded massive positions and quickly earned back the billions in losses from the past few days.

The rules of the game had been exposed, in broad daylight no less.

Robinhood users, when signing up for the popular trading app that offered “free trading” were likely unaware of their role in the hedge funds’ ability to reap huge profits.

The system is broken.”

Patrick McConlogue left Citadel for decentralized finance and co-founded a new technology called Overline that takes the philosophy of DeFi to the extreme.

Not only is Overline unable to freeze any of your assets but it can’t even turn off the exchange; it’s not possible.

You can read Patrick’s full write-up here.

Related: Ken Griffin Thanks Redditors for ‘Meme Stocks’

Market News Published Daily

Market News Today - Ex-Citadel data scientist says the market is rigged.
Market News Today – Ex-Citadel Data Scientist says the market is rigged.

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Citadel Deems Retail Advocacy Group as Conspiracists

Market News Daily - Citadel Deems Retail Advocacy Group as Conspiracists.
Market News Daily – Citadel Deems Retail Advocacy Group as Conspiracists.

A Citadel spokesperson is deeming retail advocacy group “We The Investors” and founder Dave Lauer as conspiracists.

Many retail investors support the advocacy group, which aims at helping create market transparency for all and encourages regulators to pass proposals that will level the playing field for retail investors.

Nearly 35,000 retail investors have signed a letter to the SEC published by We The Investors requesting improvements to market rules and new disclosures.

The letter is introducing new disclosure in lending transparency, margin transparency, netting transparency, FTD transparency, as well as disclosure of registration, and many other rules that will help level the playing field for retail investors.

We The Investors has held two online meetings since December with SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who took questions directly from retail investors on the proposals, which include requiring most retail stock orders to be sent to auctions to boost competition.

Other proposed rules call for a new standard for brokers to demonstrate they’ve gotten the best execution for clients on transactions, as well as lower trading increments and access fees on exchanges, and stronger disclosure around retail order executions.

But Wall Street, including Ken Griffin’s Citadel is pushing back.

“Baseless Conspiracy Theories”

We The Investors has urged the SEC to ban Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), a practice that Dave Lauer considers unethical.

“The system uses individual investors as products. It doesn’t support them,” says Dave.

The Wall Street Journal says that many brokerages, trading firms and academic researchers say individual investors get a good deal in the current system.

They say payment for order flow has benefited investors by allowing brokers to offer zero-commission trading and to execute orders at better prices than those quoted on public stock exchanges.

Many industry veterans say Mr. Lauer’s criticism is misguided, and they criticize him for peddling what they consider baseless conspiracy theories.

However, in 2004 Citadel said that payment for order flow “creates conflicts of interest and should be banned”, according to an SEC file.

“Citadel Group urges the commission to ban payment for order flow. This practice distorts order routing decisions, is anti-competitive, and creates an obvious and substantial conflict of interest between broker-dealers and their customers, said Citadel in a 2004 SEC filing.

“David Lauer spent nine months as an analyst at Citadel 14 years ago,” a Citadel spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

“While he may consider himself an authority on how the equity market functions, his rhetoric is unsupported by data and often veers into conspiracy.”

“The Game is Rigged”, Says Ex-Citadel Data Scientist

While pushback from Wall Street is expected, millions of retail investors have educated themselves in the market well enough to understand what is and what isn’t beneficial to their investments.

Payment for order flow and dark pool trading are just two of the tools retail investors want to ban from the market.

Dark pools suppress a stock’s price from rising, slashing true retail demand in the market by 50%-70% or more — will Wall Street argue that dark pools are good for retail investors too?

Patrick McConlogue, an ex-Citadel Data Scientist said during the ‘meme stock’ frenzy that the stock market is rigged, claiming he helped design it.

“The game is not fair and it never has been. Individual investors, even when operating in a swarm, are destined to lose. How do I know? I helped design the game.”

Patrick says the rules of the game also heavily favor hedge funds, something retail investors have urged SEC Chairman Gary Gensler for years to change.

“I respect many of my colleagues, the problem isn’t the people, it’s the rules of the game which heavily favor the funds.”

You can read Patrick’s full story here.

Citadel may deem retail investors as conspiracists, but this is just a coping mechanism.

I’d love to know what you think — leave your thoughts below.

Market News Published Daily

Market News Today - Citadel Deems Retail Advocacy Group as Conspiracists.
Market News Today – Citadel Deems Retail Advocacy Group as Conspiracists.

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Ken Griffin Lobbied His Way Out of “Meme Stock” Scandal

Market News Daily - Ken Griffin Lobbied His Way Out of "Meme Stock" Scandal.
Market News Daily – Ken Griffin Lobbied His Way Out of “Meme Stock” Scandal.

Citadel’s Ken Griffin lobbied his way out of the “meme stock” scandal of 2021 when Citadel and Robinhood colluded just a night prior to the trading halts.

On February 18, 2021, he testified before the House Financial Services Committee about his role in the ‘meme stock’ controversy.

However, Ken Griffin donated money directly to four members of the committee, Republicans French Hill, Andy Barr, Ann Wagner, and Bill Huizenga, per Chicago Business.

The retail community is raising awareness of these actions today when lobbied congressmen still have the power to sweep market injustices under the rug.

Investors on social media say that in other places of the world this is called bribery.

“The game is not fair and it never has been. Individual investors, even when operating in a swarm, are destined to lose. How do I know? I helped design the game,” said ex-Citadel Data Scientist Patrick McConlogue.

Patrick McConlogue appeared on Fox Business during the ‘meme stock’ frenzy of 2021 when retail investors created one of the biggest scares in Wall Street history.

GameStop and AMC shareholders were able to create panic on Wall Street by heavily buying shares of the overleveraged shorted stocks.

As share prices soared, short sellers experienced massive losses.

GameStop was able to put Melvin Capital out of business, but Patrick McConlogue says other hedge funds were able to make back billions in losses during the halt.

The halts allowed hedge funds to enter AMC and GameStop knowing shares would plummet, allowing them to capitalize on the deflation of the price.

Citadel and Robinhood Colluded But There Was No Justice for Investors

Market News Today – Ken Griffin Lobbied His Way Out of “Meme Stock” Scandal.

The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services published a press release stating Robinhood and Citadel Securities engaged in ‘blunt’ negotiations before the trading of ‘meme stocks’ occurred.

The press release states that talks regarding lowering PFOF (payment for order flow) rates happened just a night before trading restrictions.

The “GameStopped” report issued by the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services greatly details how the NSCC saved Robinhood from defaulting due to failing to meet collateral obligations.

On January 28th, 2021, Robinhood routed orders to six market makers for equities: Citadel Securities, G1 Execution Services, Morgan Stanley, Two Sigma Securities, Virtu, and Wolverine.

The conversations between Robinhood and Citadel were tense as the two negotiated the price of PFOF rebate rates and price caps for AMC and GameStop.

Furthermore, Robinhood received a massive waiver of its deposit requirement from the DTCC.

And according to the report, without this waiver, Robinhood would have defaulted on its regulatory collateral obligations.

NSCC officials say the waiver was necessary to avoid systemic risk to the market.

The DTCC waived a total of $9.7 billion of collateral deposit requirements on January 28, 2021.

Robinhood is Being Sued in New Lawsuit

According to Business Insider, the court said at the time that the evidence between Citadel Securities and Robinhood was not sufficient.

But there is now a new lawsuit against Robinhood in 2023 which alleges that on January 28, 2021, Robinhood prohibited purchases of the stocks underlying the affected options on its platform and also prohibited purchases of the exercise of the affected options, and only allowed the closing out of such positions.

The lawsuit further alleges that during the period January 29, 2021 through February 4, 2021, Robinhood imposed significant limits on any purchases and continued to prevent the exercise of the affected options on its trading platform.

Consequently, the value of the affected options dropped dramatically and remained suppressed throughout the month, causing investors to suffer big losses, says the press release.

Ken Griffin’s Citadel may have been able to lobby themselves out of the situation, but Robinhood has litigation matters to attend to this year.

This raises questions about how government officials will ever be able to aid retail investors when lobbied congressmen can easily take opposing sides.

Market News Published Daily

Market News Today - Ken Griffin Lobbied His Way Out of "Meme Stock" Scandal.
Market News Today – Ken Griffin Lobbied His Way Out of “Meme Stock” Scandal.

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Citadel, Virtu, Susquehanna Fight Biotech Company Lawsuit

Market News Daily - Citadel, Virtu, Susquehanna Fight biotech company lawsuit.
Market News Daily – Citadel, Virtu, Susquehanna Fight Biotech Company Lawsuit.

Citadel, Virtu, Susquehanna, and others are fighting a lawsuit from cancer research company Northwest Biotherapeutics (OTCMKTS:NWBO).

Others in the lawsuit include Canaccord Genuity LLC, G1 Execution Services LLC, GTS Securities LLC, Instinet LLC, and Lime Trading Corp.

Some retail investors might be familiar with a few of these names involved in the handling of their MMTLP shares, which developed into one of the biggest financial frauds on Wall Street.

Northwest Biotherapeutics has sued eight of the US’s largest market-making traders alleging they drove down its share price by placing sell orders they had no intention of executing, also known as ‘spoofing’.

The complaint, filed by Northwest Biotherapeutics in a federal court in New York on Thursday, claimed that the traders “deliberately engaged in repeated spoofing that interfered with the natural forces of supply and demand” by placing tens of millions of fake orders between December 2017 and August of last year.

Comments from Northwest Biotheraputics

The trading companies would then cancel those orders and buy Northwest’s shares at an artificially lower price, the complaint alleged.

Lawyers for the clinical-stage biotechnology firm claimed a “particularly egregious example” of this activity took place in May, after the publication of what they maintain were positive trial data for Northwest’s DCVax-L brain cancer drug.

The study’s design had been questioned by scientists, per FT.

The news “should have caused NWBO’s share price to increase, absent manipulation in the market”, they wrote, referring to the company’s stock symbol.

Instead, it dropped from $1.73 to a low of $0.3862. 

“This staggering decline of 78 per cent in the price on a day with extremely positive news about the company was caused by defendants’ relentless and brazen manipulation of the market for NWBO shares,” lawyers at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll added.

Ken Griffin Objects to the Allegations

“This frivolous lawsuit appears to be nothing more than an attempt by Northwest Biotherapeutics to divert attention away from its long history of governance and management failures, SEC charges for financial reporting lapses, and lawsuits from its own shareholders,” Citadel Securities said in a statement.

“We intend to pursue any and all legal action against Northwest Biotherapeutics for making these false and baseless allegations, which only undermine the integrity of our capital markets,” the trading company added.

“It’s already underhanded to engage in market manipulation, but to do so at the expense of cancer patients, some of whom have no other treatments to place their hopes on, is unconscionable,” said Laura Posner, a partner at Cohen Milstein.

Retail investors are enraged by the continued scandals from Citadel and other market makers.

Citadel has a long history of market manipulation and fines.

“The game is not fair and it never has been. Individual investors, even when operating in a swarm, are destined to lose. How do I know? I helped design the game,” says ex-Citadel Data Scientist Patrick McConlogue.

Shares of NWBO stock are currently trading at $0.64, respectively.

The retail community wants to see some form of justice surrounding the lawsuit.

The U.S. government is treading a fine line waiving market injustices — the SEC recently scrapped plans to vote on a hedge fund transparency rule.

Plaintiffs File Motion to Dismiss

Today, Citadel and the defendants have filed a joint memorandum of law in support of motion to dismiss this case.

If the motion to dismiss is approved, retaliation from investors around the world may grow.

In January, Occupy SEC 2023 raised awareness of the market injustices the retail community has endured over the past years.

While the protest was peaceful, the neglect is hurting the lives of real people and there’s no telling just how far these events may eventually escalate to.

Investors on social media fear peaceful protests are no longer going to create an impact but rather through alternative means.

Market News Published Daily

Market News Today - Citadel, Virtu, Susquehanna Fight biotech company lawsuit.
Market News Today – Citadel, Virtu, Susquehanna Fight Biotech Company Lawsuit.

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AMC Stock Plunges After Being Removed from the Threshold List

AMC Removed Threshold List
Market News Daily – AMC removed from threshold list.

AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) stock plunges after being removed from the NYSE Threshold Securities List; this should not be happening.

The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) violated the 13-Day Threshold List Rule after AMC remained listed for more than 25 consecutive days.

AMC CEO Adam Aron said on Twitter he asked the NYSE and FINRA to look into the stock due to the alarming amount of FTDs in market.

But the CEO never publicly demonstrated a letter confirming the bold claims.

Videos have surfaced of the CEO scrutinizing any talks about market manipulation during an in-theatre event.

Yahoo Finance published a segment on AMC being on the threshold list highlighting the cause being due to naked short selling.

“Market Makers, like those at the New York Stock Exchange, Citadel is one, they can engage in naked short selling and it’s perfectly legal, it’s part of their market making duties to provide liquidity for a stock.”

The problem is naked short selling isn’t ‘legal’ and it takes advantage of a company’s stock price by driving shares down even when demand from retail buyers is high.

Naked short selling isn’t supposed to be illegal from a regulatory perspective and legal whenever Wall Street decides it to be.

Shares of AMC Entertainment fell -15% on Tuesday.

AMC stock went from being up more than +110% this year to now being up only +18%.

What Should Have Happened Instead?

The 13-Day Threshold Rule states that a broker-dealer with fail-to-deliver positions for 13 consecutive settlement days must immediately close out the ‘FTD’ position by purchasing shares in the open market.

AMC’s share price should have surged in a buy-back or ‘repurchase’ of shares in the lit exchange.

AMC FTDs spiked up to more than $36 million in FTDs last month, through the report is still in the process of updating via T+35.

Market News Today – AMC removed from threshold list.

FTDs, or Failure-to-deliver occurs when one party in a trading contract (whether it’s shares, futures, or options) fails to deliver on their obligations.

These failures derive due to buyers not having enough money to take delivery and pay for the transaction at settlement.

In the case of sellers, it means not having the goods to meet that transaction.

This is a direct result of naked short selling in a company stock, according to Yahoo Finance.

So far, there’s been zero positive impact on the price from AMC being removed from the threshold list.

The only thing shareholders can do now is wait for the approved proposals to go into effect after AMC’s lawsuit has concluded.

Leave your thoughts on what’s happening with AMC today

The company has been through a lot, and so have shareholders.

Shareholders are either more level-headed than they ever were before, or more fearful — and it’s quite easy to see on social media.

How is AMC Entertainment standing in your eyes?

Is this just another bump on the road like we’ve seen in the past with AMC stock?

Or does it seem a little more serious?

Leave your thoughts below and share this article to get your voice heard.

Market News Published Daily

Market News Today - AMC removed from threshold list.
Market News Today – AMC removed from threshold list.

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