Regulators to look closely at trading urged by chat rooms (BARRON’S)

The SEC and other regulators should be continuously monitoring trading for signs of market manipulation and may look at discussions in public forums about trading of certain issuers. Amy Lynch, FrontLine’s Founder and President, spoke to BARRON’S about the likely regulatory approach to the recent GameStop trading volatility. Ms. Lynch said she expects that the SEC’s trading and markets division has been closely reviewing the activity of GameStop and other stocks targeted by retail investors via online trading platforms. But, Ms. Lynch sees the regulatory focus on larger investors who have more influence or a group of investors working in tandem to manipulate stock prices. She adds that a trading analysis would first be conducted and then the goal of the SEC would be to identify those people actually making the trades in question. See BARRON’S (subscription required), “GameStop Trading Could Be ‘Systemically Wrong,’ State Regulator Says”

See additional coverage, MarketWatch, “GameStop Trading Could Be ‘Systemically Wrong,’ State Regulator Says” and Yahoo! Finance, “Something ‘Systemically Wrong’ With GameStop Options Trading, Says Massachusetts Securities Regulator”