Summary Box: Brokerage firm Trillium fined $1 million for trading strategy

Summary Box: Brokerage firm fined $1M

BROKERAGE FIRM FINED: Market regulators have fined Trillium Brokerage Services $1 million for using a trading strategy said to create a false perception of demand for stocks that earned it profits. Nine traders and two officers at the firm were suspended from the securities industry.

FLURRY OF STOCK ORDERS: Trillium placed huge numbers of artificial orders to buy or sell and then canceled them almost immediately — on 46,000 occasions in 2006 and 2007, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said.

PROBE UNDER WAY: The Securities and Exchange Commission is examining such trading strategies, sometimes referred to as “quote stuffing.”