Fake Hedge Fund Manager Who Ripped Off Kim Kardashian’s Fake Husband Sentenced To A Few Years In Prison

Dealbreaker’s one and only  Bess Levin writes: Remember Andrey Hicks? For those who can’t keep their founders of fake hedge funds straight, he’s the guy who ripped off Kim Kardashian’s 72 day husband, Chris Humphries, along with a bunch of other investors in his Locust Offshore Management fund, and in 2011 was arrested and had his assets frozen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which took issue with the “brazen web of lies” he’d fed people that included:

The claim he received a Ph.D in Applied Mathematics from Harvard in two years (he neither earned his doctorate from Harvard nor his undergraduate degree and in fact only lasted three semesters in Cambridge, taking a single math course, in which he got a D-)….

Wait…there’s even better stuff at http://dealbreaker.com/2013/03/fake-hedge-fund-manager-who-ripped-off-kim-kardashians-fake-husband-sentenced-to-a-few-years-in-prison/

Last But Not Least: Large asteroid heading to Earth? Pray, says NASA

Forget duck and cover.  NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray.  According to Reuters, that's about all the United States - or anyone for that matter - could do at this point about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth, Bolden told lawmakers at a U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee hearing on Tuesday.

An asteroid estimated to be have been about 55 feet in diameter exploded on February 15 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and damaged buildings. More than 1,500 people were injured.  Later that day, a larger, unrelated asteroid discovered last year passed about 17,200 miles from Earth, closer than the network of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.

The events "serve as evidence that we live in an active solar system with potentially hazardous objects passing through our neighborhood with surprising frequency," said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat…..

While there’s still time check out  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/us-space-astroids-idUSBRE92J02520130320

JPMorgan agrees to deal that will return $546M to MF Global customers

JPMorgan Chase has agreed to a deal that will return $546 million to former customers of trading firm MF Global Holdings Ltd., which collapsed in 2011 with $1.6 billion missing from its accounts….

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/jpmorgan_agrees_customers_deal_that_y4xg7PXIxXLU9iP9Cws8LI

Mini flash crashes: A dozen a day

According to Maureen Farrell of CNNMoneyInvest fame  there may not have been any major market malfunctions recently, but mini flash crashes still happen nearly every day.  Stock exchanges don't publicly release data about these mini crashes -- when a stock rapidly plunges then rebounds -- but most active traders say there are at least a dozen a day.  Dennis Dick, a proprietary trader at Bright Trading in Detroit, said he stopped tracking them because they happen so frequently.

While none have been as disruptive as the "flash crash" of 2010, or the ones that marred the IPOs of the BATS exchange and Facebook in 2012, they highlight the fragility of markets increasingly dominated by high frequency traders who count on fancy algorithms to make a quick profit. So far this year, these mini crashes have taken place in shares of Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, insurance broker Aon  and apparel maker Hanesbrands....

Wait...wait...there's more at http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/20/investing/mini-flash-crash/index.html?iid=SF_BN_River

Top Firm Trader: 'They Have Obliterated Our Rates Desk'

When we hear about Wall Street layoffs we usually hear about them in the hundreds or (more likely) thousands. So normally a dozen or so layoffs doesn't make an impact. This is different.

Reuters reports that Credit Suisse has sacked the head of its NYC rates desk along with about a dozen salespeople and traders.  This is dramatic, but it isn't shocking. The Fed's low interest rate policy makes rates trading dismal business as there's such low volatility.  Remember it could be worse, it could be UBS...

http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-suisse-cuts-rates-trading-desk-2013-3

Judge orders bogus fund manager to prison for 40 months

From Reuters: Andrey Hicks, who invented an Ivy League resume and Wall Street credentials to steal $2.3 million from investors for a made-up hedge fund, will spend more than three years in prison, a judge ordered on Tuesday.

U.S. Federal Judge Patti Saris sentenced Hicks, 29, who most recently lived in Massachusetts, to serve 40 months in prison and ordered him to pay $2.3 million in restitution.

The sentencing ends one of the more brazen hedge fund frauds at a time wealthy investors are still reeling from the fallout of the Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford investment swindles...

More?  Check out http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/19/us-hedgefunds-hicks-sentencing-idUSBRE92I16U20130319

Is SAC’s Michael Steinberg about to be criminally charged?

From FierceFinance: For months now, federal prosecutors have been weighing whether to bring criminal charges against Michael Steinberg, a former technology portfolio manager with SAC Capital's Sigma Capital division and confidante of Steve Cohen. He has long been thought to be the ultimate prize in the insider trading investigations.

Steinberg had been named previously by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal prosecution involving convicted hedge fund traders, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson. Any charges would likely involve trading in Dell, as evidence in trials made clear that Steinberg and his colleagues discussing Dell's earnings performance before they were publicly released. Trading in Nvidia may also be included….

Read all about it at http://www.fiercefinance.com/story/michael-steinberg-about-be-criminally-charged/2013-03-18