Chicago Trader Convicted of "Spoofery"

A high-frequency commodities trader has been found guilty of disrupting commodity futures prices to make $1.4 million. A federal jury convicted Michael Coscia of fraud and spoofing. The 53-year-old Coscia was accused of fraudulently earning money through the Chicago-based CME Group, the world's largest operator of futures exchanges, and European futures markets in 2011. Coscia of Rumson, New Jersey artificially bumped up commodities prices by placing orders that he cancelled within milliseconds. Prosecutors painted Coscia as a con man who tricked rivals by ``making it look like something big was happening in the market.'' But defense attorney Karen Patton Seymour said Coscia was a ``stand-up guy'' who had hit upon a clever way to beat far bigger, better-resourced rivals.