SEC Charges California Day Trader for Manipulative Trading

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING
File No. 3-19908

August 10, 2020 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Nicholas Mejia Scrivener of Temecula, California for perpetrating a manipulative securities trading scheme that netted him approximately $140,000 in profits.

According to the SEC's order, Scrivener, a full-time day trader, engaged in a manipulative trading strategy known as spoofing, which generally involved placing multiple orders to buy or sell a stock that Scrivener did not intend to execute, sometimes at multiple price levels. According to the order, the purpose of these non-bona fide orders was to create a false appearance of market interest in order to increase or decrease the market price of the stock and induce other market participants to trade at the artificially inflated or depressed prices against Scrivener's bona fide orders on the opposite side of the market. After executing his bona fide orders at the manipulated prices, the SEC's order finds, Scrivener typically canceled any open non-bona fide orders. The order further finds that Scrivener used multiple brokerage accounts, held both in his own name and in his wife's name, to carry out the scheme, sometimes placing non-bona fide orders in one account and bona fide orders in the same stock in a different account.

The SEC's order finds that Scrivener's conduct violated the market manipulation provisions of Section 9(a)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Scrivener agreed to settle the charges by consenting to a cease-and-desist order and paying disgorgement of $140,250, prejudgment interest of $15,020, and a civil money penalty of $50,000.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Dee A. O'Hair of the SEC's Chicago Regional Office and by John D. Marino and Simona K. Suh of the SEC's Market Abuse Unit. The Market Abuse Unit's Chief Joseph G. Sansone supervised the investigation.