(Reuters) - Some traders are manipulating U.S. stocks that are worth less than $1 by taking both sides of trades in order to earn big rebates, according to an official at Knight Capital Group Inc (KCG.N).
Knight, a top U.S. market maker for individual investors, and the other four largest market makers discussed this problem with federal securities regulators on Thursday, Jamil Nazarali, Knight's global head of electronic trading, told reporters on Friday. "It happens for hundreds of millions of shares per day," Nazarali said, adding that this type of market manipulation is hard to prove. The gaming costs Knight "tens of thousands of dollars" per day on some days, he said on the sidelines of a Security Traders Association conference here.
Nazarali added that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials "seemed empathetic" to the concerns of the five firms that execute much of the orders of individual, or retail, investors -- Knight, UBS AG (UBS.N), Citadel Investment Group, Citigroup Inc (C.N), and E*Trade Financial Corp (ETFC.O).
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