SEC charges brokers over 'squawk' boxes

WASHINGTON, DC – In mid-August, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged four brokers and a day trader with cheating investors through a fraudulent scheme that used 'squawk boxes' to eavesdrop on the confidential order flow of major brokerages so they could trade ahead of large orders at better prices.

The day trader, John Amore, is charged with paying brokers at Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch to provide live audio access to those firms' squawk boxes – devices that broadcast, within a securities firm, institutional orders to buy and sell large blocks of securities. Amore, who was chief executive of Watley Group, a publicly traded company that was the parent of AB Watley, a registered broker-dealer, directed traders working for him to listen to the pirated squawk boxes and trade

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