The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just opened its first insider trading case involving ETFs. Yesterday the regulatory agency charged that ex-Goldman Sachs trader Spencer Mindlin passed on to his accountant father, Alfred Mindlin, non-public information about big buy and sell orders pending for securities underlying the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT). The SEC claims that between December 2007 and March 2008 the duo netted at least $57,000 from the trades, which were allegedly made in another family member's TD Ameritrade account.

The Associated Press, Bloomberg, Courthouse News Service, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal all covered the news.

The Mindlins' lawyer, Robert Knuts of Park & Jensen, countered that the son "suggested a trading strategy to his father and helped the father understand and execute the strategy."

"That strategy was not based on any confidential information obtained by the sun," Knuts told the Journal.

Spencer Mindlin worked on Goldman's ETF trading desk at the time.

The Journal reports that, according to an unnamed source, it was TD Ameritrade that tipped off the SEC, and the SEC complaint specifically cites some phone calls recorded by Ameritrade. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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