Long before Virtu was forced to pull its IPO due to the backlash against HFT frontrunners in party due to being stupid enough to post its perfect trading record of 1 trading day loss in 5 years which could only be the result of a grossly rigged market, we pointed out that another entity, one having little in common with your garden variety HFT parastie, namely JPMorgan, had a 2013 trading record which could be summed up on one word only: perfection.
Yet while one could simply attribute the same kind of market rigging to JPM as one can (and should) to the average hi-freak, it seems there may be more here than meets the eye so used to seeing manipulation everywhere it looks.
According to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, “a technical support person who worked for JP Morgan in Australia claims the bank regularly misled its New York parent and the US Federal Reserve by failing to report losing trades.”
If nothing else, and if the whistleblower’s allegations are proven true, it will certainly explain JPM’s trading perfection: because when one excludes the “losing trades” from one trading record, it is rather easy to end up with nothing but trading wins.
SMH reports that the “explosive” allegations are contained in a submission by the person to the Senate inquiry into the performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a disgruntled whistleblower has spoken up against his former employer (especially with a delay as substantial as this one), but in this case this may be more than just someone seeking to recoup compensation from an untimely termination: “Business Day has met the person and agreed to allow him to remain anonymous. He appears to be credible. The person complained to ASIC and later went to work for the regulator, but he said the regulator failed to investigate his claims.”
Credible or not, JPM promptly denied everything:
