Spreadsheet and Gumption Were All U.K. Trader Needed to Rig Market
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York.
Craig Ruttle/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
It only took a spreadsheet souped up with custom enhancements to manipulate one of the world’s biggest markets with a strategy that on some days involved trading billions of dollars’ worth of stock-futures contracts.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, London trader Navinder Singh Sarao earned $40 million from 2010 to 2014. His product of choice: CME Group Inc.’s E-mini futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the key measure of U.S. stock prices. He traded so much, the U.S. government says, that he contributed to the flash crash of May 6, 2010, that briefly drove shares into a nosedive that erased nearly $1 trillion in value.