Pump and dump only with bitcoin? 20 million euro fine for Morgan Stanley

Anyone who has been in cryptocurrency for a while is familiar with pump and dump strategies. P&D therefore seems to be reserved for smaller crypto coins whose value is easier to manipulate. Even Wikipedia shares that opinion.

But that is not entirely true, the big boys are also guilty of this. The American bank Morgan Stanley is fined 20 million euros for a pump and dump with bonds.

Pump and dump bonds

Morgan Stanley has been fined 20 million euros by the French AFM. The US bank’s London branch would have used pump and dump strategies to manipulate the price of bonds. This is worrying. Not only does this show that regulated parties such as Morgan Stanley are still guilty of pumping and dumping, it also shows that safe-considered bonds can fall victim to price manipulation.

The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) claims that the bank manipulated the prices of French and Belgian bonds in June 2015 after a bet on French debt could cause a loss of $ 20 million.

Cat in the corner

The AMF claims that Morgan Stanley’s London desk went futures long on French bonds and short on German debt. Bloomberg writes that this led to a loss of $ 6 million. A day later they lost 8.7 million dollars. This has driven the traders of Morgan Stanley to buy futures on French bonds.

The futures were used to artificially increase the value of French and Belgian bonds before dumping them all on the market. Of course Morgan Stanley denies in all keys and they will appeal. They want to defend their “integrity and high standards of professional conduct”.

“The activities in question were conducted in accordance with market practice and as part of the role and obligations of the company as a market maker, Morgan Stanley remains convinced that it has acted in the best interest of the market and its customers,” said the bank in a statement.

Pump and dump in bitcoin loses mojo

As is well known, the crypto world also has “trouble” with pump and dump. The course of bitcoin also has to do with such practices. But luckily there are fewer and fewer. You can tell by the increasing annual lows of the price. And even anti-bitcoiner Peter Schiff noticed, even though his comment is probably unintentionally positive.

Bitcoin pump & dumpers are losing their mojo. They managed to pump the price by $ 550 in one minute, a 7.5% spike. Yet the dump reversed the entire pump with an 8% drop in just 7.5 hours. If #Bitcoin pumpers can no longer sucker in new buyers the game is over. Look out below!

– Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) December 4, 2019