I merely tried to clarify what they were charged and convicted for.

The rest of the paragraph in the law of which they were convicted goes something like this(loosely translated): "or which secures (makes) the rate (price) of one or several financial instruments at an abnormal or artificial level and / or violates acceptable practice in the market or without legitimate reason"

I see your point, and as I noted; the last word is not said in this case. This was only the District Court.

The reason for why they were charged is, as I understand it, that they repeatedly over a period of time, manipulated this algo, knew how it would respond and exploited it, and in between the buys and sells of doing so, they made the price for that stock be at a misleading level.

The algo sat a price for it stocks - and acted upon actions in the market for one particular stock. It highered its selling price when these guys bought, and vice versa, but in a way that let the guys take a profit.

When doing so - they may have "manipulated the market". - Rosen prices to an artificial level, because their only reason for "pumping" up the price was not because they valued the stock at that high(er) price; but, they did it to make the buy position of the algo accept their (higher) offers in which they made their profits after having "pumped" up the price in the first place.

The trades did probably not have a "legitimate" purpose. They did not only try to profit from the "normal" price-variations of the marked price as daytrades does, but from their own, "selfmade" price-variations by exploiting the algo.

And their trading patterns, described in the court document, did maybe "violate acceptable practice in the market"...

However - you have a good point here - misleading for whom or in relation to what truth. The algo and the people behind it sat a initial price, and then they made that algo behave like it did. They made it value a stock at a higher price when or after someone else bought that stock from them.

If it was programmed that way, was the price not also valued correctly, based on how it was programmed ? ( The "fundamental truth" being what is the algo was programmed to value that stock at )

This will be an interesting case through the court system in Norway..

I am Norwegian, soon-to-be a lawyer and a computer scientist ( with some experience with day trading, eps. in the norwegian market )

As many of you have pointed out, and wanted to know: What are these young men charged with and convicted of ? Is it winning over an algo? Outwitting another "player in the market" ? Winning over the "big guys" ?

Of course not. It is not illegal to be smart, nor to make money in the stock market by "outwitting" someone - or something.

In the Norwegian court document refereed to, the parties admits that the trading algo used in this case was of "first generation" and was not particularly advanced. It did not learn, and was easily manipulated.

The law of which their were convicted says ( loosely translated ) something like this : [it is illeagal to] "by illegally execute market manipulation with financial instruments, by submitting orders in the market or execute transactions which gives, or is capable of giving, false or misleading signals about the supply(offer), demand or price on financial instruments".

They are charged with, not manipulating the alog itself, but the whole market _through their transactions_ with the algo. They _knew_ what was going to happen by doing what they did - the prices would rise on buy and the opposite on sell. They (maliciously) exploited this, but at the same time, manipulated the price in the market as a whole, which is illegal by Norwegian law. ( I and would guess, in the majority, if not all, jurisdictions)

This conviction was also given by the District(lower) Court in Norway. The Appellate Court and most likely also the Supreme Court of Norway will have their saying before this case is over.

It sure would be nice sometimes to be able to download what you have experienced too. From normal days when you wonder what exactly you have been doing, cool experiences aka an airplane takeoff, driving fast in a car, good times with friends etc. and the more difficult experiences to remember such as what you really where doing between 12 and 3 last Saturday night and high-adrenaline situations when you really canÂt remember everything correctly. Either to some sort of computer for visual and audible playback... or.. maybe even to your sensory organs directly? I mean, since youÂre already "plugged" in, it should after time be possible.