Two weeks ago, without knowing the details of the most recent market-rigging and frontrunning scandal involving “alternative” market veteran ITG’s dark pool POSIT, which issued a vague 8-K it would settle with the SEC for “irregularities”, we explained what we thought had happened:
ITG had an in house prop trading group, or “pilot”, which operated for nearly two years, whose only signal was client order flow, which it would frontrun, and make millions in profits. In other words, once again precisely what we have claimed since 2009. But oh yes, not everyone is guilty of such manipulation. Only Liquidnet… and Pipeline… and ITG… and countless other ATS and HFT firms for whom clients are better known as either “easy money” or muppets.
And yes, we get the “trading experiment” narrative: calling it “criminal market manipulation and order frontrunning scheme” just does not sound like something the Modern Markets Initiative would spend millions of dollars to get Congressmen to agree on.
It turns out we were spot on, the only thing we missed was the name of this market manipulation exercise. Now, thanks to the SEC, we know: “Project Omega” (or as it was also correctly dubbed here the “criminal frontrunning scheme“) is how ITG dubbed its secretive prop-trading desk whose only purpose was to frontrun clients.
(Read the rest of the story here…)