Is quote stuffing legal?

High-speed computers have been buying and selling stocks and then immediately canceling the orders.

By Kim Peterson Sep 16, 2010 4:05PM
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether quote stuffing is legal, The Wall Street Journal reported.

This happens when someone places huge orders to buy and sell stocks and then cancels the orders immediately. Believe it or not, that split-second trade could cause stock prices to swing.

Quote stuffing is the latest round of funny business that can happen as high-speed trading takes in the stock market. This ultra-fast trading now accounts for two-thirds of market volume, the Journal reports.

The SEC is looking into how high-speed trading was involved in the May 6 "flash crash," and is expected to have a report out this month, the Journal reports.
One possible solution to quote stuffing is to require traders to hold orders open for a minimum length of time, said Mary Schapiro, the chairman of the SEC.

0Comments

DATA PROVIDERS

Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.

Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. See delay times for other exchanges.

Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Thomson Reuters (click for restrictions). Real-time quotes provided by BATS Exchange. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Interactive Data Real-Time Services. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by SIX Financial Information.

Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.

STOCK SCOUTER

StockScouter rates stocks from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, using a system of advanced mathematics to determine a stock's expected risk and return. Ratings are displayed on a bell curve, meaning there will be fewer ratings of 1 and 10 and far more of 4 through 7.

127
127 rated 1
269
269 rated 2
463
463 rated 3
587
587 rated 4
658
658 rated 5
616
616 rated 6
645
645 rated 7
431
431 rated 8
263
263 rated 9
138
138 rated 10
12345678910

Top Picks

SYMBOLNAMERATING
COPConocoPhillips10
NWSNews Ord Shs Class B10
YHOOYahoo! Inc10
TJXTJX Companies Inc9
AMXAmerica Movil ADR Rep 20 Ord Shs Series L9
More

LATEST POSTS

Scary story: the 2013 market looks like 1987

All hail the bull market, which ended the week with a big rally. But it also is starting to look a little like 1987, which suffered an epic blow-out.

Fidelity Brokerage Services, Member NYSE, SIPC. (c) 2011 FMR LLC. All rights reserved

VIDEO ON MSN MONEY

ABOUT

Top Stocks provides analysis about the most noteworthy stocks in the market each day, combining some of the best content from around the MSN Money site and the rest of the Web.

Contributors include professional investors and journalists affiliated with MSN Money.

Follow us on Twitter @topstocksmsn.