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Jane Street barred from Indian markets as regulator freezes $566M

(www.cnbc.com)
518 points bwfan123 | 2 comments | 06 Jul 25 14:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.414s | source
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thedailymail ◴[06 Jul 25 21:36 UTC] No.44484295[source]▶
>While these actions were not a breach of any regulation, SEBI said that the “intensity and sheer scale” of their intervention, and the rapid reversal of their trades “without any plausible economic rationale, other than the concurrent activity in and impact on their positions in the BANKNIFTY index options markets,” was manipulative.

I don't get the basis for regulatory action if they weren't in "breach of any regulation." Not a fan of financial skullduggery, but it does seem important for government agencies to play by explicit, non-arbitrary rules. (Or maybe this article just got it wrong?)

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1. markasoftware ◴[06 Jul 25 22:11 UTC] No.44484552[source]▶
"market manipulation" in general is hard to define. The working definition in the US is something along the lines of "placing orders in the hopes that the price of the security will change in response to those orders existing, with no intention of actually executing the orders". There may be some specific regulations about specific types of market manipulation that are more clearly defined, but oftentimes not. There's lots of grey area, because the definition of market manipulation makes it seem like any order that's canceled instead of executed might be market manipulation. But in fact a majority of orders do get canceled before they trade!

So the real difference between market manipulation and a canceled order is just intention, so regulators have to make judgment calls sometimes.

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2. pgwhalen ◴[07 Jul 25 01:44 UTC] No.44485922[source]▶
> "market manipulation" in general is hard to define. The working definition in the US is something along the lines of "placing orders in the hopes that the price of the security will change in response to those orders existing, with no intention of actually executing the orders".

No, what you defined is "spoofing" - a much narrowed subcategory of market manipulation (which itself is gray, as you note). Market manipulation is broader and basically amounts to intentionally trying to affect the price of the security - even grayer.