Athena Capital Research LLC used $40 million to rig prices of thousands of stocks including EBay Inc. (EBAY) for at least six months in 2009, U.S. regulators said today when fining the high-speed trading firm $1 million.
Using a system dubbed “Gravy,” Athena manipulated shares of Nasdaq-listed stocks, undermining the exchange operator’s end-of-day procedures for reducing price volatility, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.