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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Rat dog micro-cap picks... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BW who wrote (37100)	1/11/2008 8:45:36 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 48461

This is what they can do to you in the pits> 2 traders at Chicago Board of Trade accused of bilking customers out of $2.1 million. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday charged two traders with defrauding investors by as much as $2.1 million in a carefully timed deal at the Chicago Board of Trade. Edward C. Sarvey of Lemont and David G. Sklena of Skokie reaped an illegal windfall from their positions in the trading pit, according to a civil complaint the CFTC filed with the U.S. District Court in Chicago. The CFTC has no criminal authority and is seeking financial damages. Neither Sarvey nor Sklena could be reached for comment. On April 2, 2004, Sarvey had customer orders to sell 2,474 5-year Treasury note futures contracts, the commission said. The market for this particular future plunged when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced rosier-than-expected employment numbers for the previous month. Within six minutes of the 7:30 a.m. announcement, the price per contract dipped by $1,000, but then rallied to near its previous level. During the upswing, Sarvey unloaded 2,274 contracts to Sklena in a friendly arrangement at below-market rates, costing investors as much as $2.1 million. At the same time, Sarvey bought back 485 contracts for his personal account at an equally low price. He then sold off the contracts in his personal account at market rates, pocketing $357,250 in profits, the commission said. Sklena sold off a remaining 1,789 contracts at market rates, giving him a profit of $1.65 million. Of that sum, Lawrence-Bonfitto Trading Co., Sklena's clearing firm, received about $650,000 for approving the deal. The CFTC's complaint also names Lawrence-Bonfitto Trading and its principal, Joseph Bonfitto, as relief defendants. An attempt to reach Bonfitto was unsuccessful. The CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in July and the exchanges' parent company, CME Group, cooperated with the investigation. "We continue to regulate our markets, under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, to ensure that applicable laws, regulations and rules are enforced in order to create a fair and efficient marketplace for all of our customers worldwide," CME Group said in a statement.