{"id":81645,"date":"2022-05-25T00:17:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T04:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=81645"},"modified":"2022-05-24T23:06:08","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T03:06:08","slug":"tradezero-america-and-co-founder-charged-with-deceiving-customers-about-meme-stock-trading-halts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/05\/2022\/tradezero-america-and-co-founder-charged-with-deceiving-customers-about-meme-stock-trading-halts.html","title":{"rendered":"TradeZero America and Co-Founder Charged with Deceiving Customers about Meme Stock Trading Halts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged broker-dealer <strong>TradeZero America Inc.<\/strong>, and its co-founder, Daniel Pipitone, with falsely stating to the firm\u2019s customers that they didn\u2019t restrict the customers\u2019 purchases of meme stocks when in fact they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In late January 2021, many brokers restricted investors\u2019 ability to purchase a group of highly volatile stocks generally known as \u201cmeme stocks.\u201d According to the SEC\u2019s order, on January 28, 2021, TradeZero was instructed by its clearing broker not to allow its customers to purchase three meme stocks. TradeZero ultimately halted purchases for about 10 minutes. After the halt, TradeZero and Pipitone made misleading public statements via interviews, social media, and in a press release in an effort to distinguish their company from brokers that restricted trading during that period. For example, in a Reddit \u201cAsk Me Anything,\u201d Pipitone said, \u201cThat some trading firms are blocking these symbols is disgusting, unprecedented\u2026 Our clearing firm tried to make us block you and we refused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This case sends a powerful message that participants in our capital markets cannot exploit market turbulence to deceive customers,&#8221; said said Melissa Hodgman, Associate Director of the SEC\u2019s Division of Enforcement. &#8220;The SEC has been committed to ensuring that our capital markets continue to function in times of uncertainty, and today\u2019s action highlights this commitment.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TradeZero and Pipitone consented to the entry of the SEC\u2019s order finding that they violated Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act of 1933. Without admitting or denying the charges, TradeZero and Pipitone agreed to a cease-and-desist order, retention of an independent compliance consultant to ensure future compliance with the federal securities laws, a $100,000 penalty for TradeZero, and a $25,000 penalty for Pipitone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged broker-dealer TradeZero America Inc., and its co-founder, Daniel Pipitone, with falsely stating to the firm\u2019s customers that they didn\u2019t restrict the customers\u2019 purchases of meme stocks when in fact they did. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81646,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81645\/revisions\/81646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}