Athena Capital Reserach LLC agreed to pay a $1 million penalty on charges it manipulated prices on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The company settled the case out of court, although it did not admit or deny the allegations, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a New York-based company with using aggressive strategies to move the closing prices of thousands of stocks listed on Nasdaq, in the agency’s first-ever market-manipulation case against a high-frequency trading firm.
Athena Capital Research is accused of using a trading algorithm which potentially hurts regular investors.
SEC enforcement chief Andrew Ceresney said at a press conference that the agency has “a number of other investigations” into computer-driven trading firms for manipulative activity.
