Courtesy of Pam Martens
In 2014 Citigroup Had Six Separate Trading Venues, Including Dark Pools
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Dark Pools are opaque stock trading platforms operated by the largest Wall Street banks and other firms. They are, effectively, stock exchanges but have been given exemptions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from having to register as a stock exchange or to submit to more rigorous oversight by the SEC.
The rationale for the existence of Dark Pools owned by the mega banks has escaped the public since these are the same banks that are serially fined for abusing the public’s trust and rigging other markets like foreign exchange, Libor, and the Nasdaq stock market in the 1990s. Their conduct was so bad in the Nasdaq matter that they were forced to submit to having their trading phone calls taped and reviewed by regulators.
Wall Street On Parade has written extensively about the highly suspect transactions that are taking place in the Dark Pools of the mega banks, the most outrageous of which is the trading of their own bank stock. (See related articles below.) The SEC has also repeatedly fined and sanctioned the Dark Pools of the biggest Wall Street banks which has had little effect on stopping the abuses.
On July 18 of last year, the SEC, in a unanimous vote, decided to require more public disclosure from each Dark Pool about how it conducts its business. The more detailed public disclosures were to be provided on a new form called an ATS-N.
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