r/interesting • u/be_you_tiful- • 9d ago

Just Wow Bro cashed out way too much

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A man working from his parents' house in West London made tens of millions of dollars trading futures from a bedroom filled with stuffed toys. His name is Navinder Singh Sarao, and he's on the autism spectrum.

There was no Wall Street trading floor. Sarao worked out of the family home in Hounslow, using a customized trading program on an ordinary desktop computer, and by most accounts he lived a pretty quiet life.

Then came May 6, 2010. In a matter of minutes, US stock markets plunged, and nearly $1 trillion in value briefly vanished before prices bounced back. It became known as the Flash Crash.

Years later, US authorities said Sarao's spoofing helped make it worse. Prosecutors said he placed large sell orders he never intended to fill, then canceled them, which pushed prices down so he could profit from the swings. They said his strategy was running on the day of the crash, and that he made more than $40 million from this kind of trading over several years.

Sarao fought extradition from the UK for years. He eventually pleaded guilty to wire fraud and spoofing in the US. His lawyers pointed to his autism, and the judge sentenced him to time served followed by home confinement rather than more prison time, citing his cooperation with prosecutors.

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u/Advanced_Accident_29 9d ago

It’s banned technically but it still exists every day. I can’t think that there’s actually a real way to stop it. In essence you’re saying “I put an order there but now I don’t like it so I’m going to remove it”. How do you really stop that? That’s called trader discretion if you’re doing it by hand

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u/ThreeHeadCerber 9d ago

Just say that you can't do it, once you're in you're in no take baksies, or at least not in short time frames

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u/Ok_Zebra_1500 9d ago

Another poster mentioned how they only allow pre-approved companies now to do this and if there is a flash crash they pause the market and make these privileged companies submit to some special fast audit “verifying” they were making legitimate trade submissions.

It’s a big club and you aren’t in it, indeed.