Bro cashed out way too much

[u/be_you_tiful-]

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.

[u/ThugstinSwagburn]

This reads like he was just using the free market and the corporations in charge didn't like they where losing in the free market to him.

The one time that capitalism works for the average man, he goes to jail.

[u/jawknee530i → u/ThugstinSwagburn]

I work for a trading firm that is part of one of those "big corporations in charge". We'd be fined out the ass on top of the profitable trades being rolled back and people would end up in prison if they did that here as well. Sometimes it's not a case of the big guys doing things the little guys can't and spoofing in the market is one of those.