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Penalty distribution by technique

Penalty distributions within every technique are heavily right-skewed: the median is far below the mean, and outliers extend well beyond the upper whisker. Any single "typical penalty" figure for a technique is misleading, which is why this site reports medians alongside the spread.

Distribution of civil penalties by manipulation techniqueA horizontal box plot for 11 techniques on a logarithmic scale, because penalties span six orders of magnitude. Each row shows the interquartile range as a box, the median as a vertical line, whiskers to the furthest values within 1.5 times the interquartile range, and individual outliers as points. Sample size is printed beneath each label.Civil penalty (USD), logarithmic scale $1k $10k $100k $1m $10m $100m $1bn $10bnLogarithmic scale: each gridline is ten times the previous one.Price manipulation n=56 Price manipulation median: $12m$325m$400m$436m$475m$475m$800m$866m$1.5bnPonzi schemes n=165 Ponzi schemes median: $1m$12m$12m$13m$15m$16m$18m$19m$19m$23m$25m$27m$32m$40m$76m$81m$100m$111m$429m$5.9bnWash trading n=32 Wash trading median: $735k$35m$325mSpoofing n=71 Spoofing median: $700k$7m$12m$15m$23m$24m$25m$25m$26m$26m$30m$45m$109m$436mBoiler rooms n=25 Boiler rooms median: $700k$11m$26m$26m$28mPump and dump n=49 Pump and dump median: $307k$2m$3m$3m$5m$23m$26mMatched orders n=23 Matched orders median: $250k$3mUnregistered distributions n=91 Unregistered distributions median: $173k$2m$2m$5m$7m$8m$10m$19m$23m$24m$37mUndisclosed control blocks n=41 Undisclosed control blocks median: $150k$1m$2m$3m$8m$23mRule 105 offering shorts n=79 Rule 105 offering shorts median: $107k$680k$707k$805k$810k$812k$905k$1m$3m$4mInsider trading n=345 Insider trading median: $89k$776k$812k$834k$834k$893k$910k$924k$925k$936k$1m$1m$1m$1m$1m$1m$1m$1m$1m$1m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$2m$3m$3m$3m$3m$4m$5m$5m$5m$5m$5m
How civil penalties are distributed within each manipulation technique, shown as a box plot rather than an average.

How this was calculated

Only actions where a civil monetary penalty was stated in the release are included, and only techniques with at least four such actions are charted. Boxes span the first to third quartile, the line is the median, whiskers extend to the furthest observation within 1.5 interquartile ranges, and points beyond that are drawn individually rather than removed.

What this chart does not show

  • The horizontal axis is logarithmic. Penalties in this data run from a few thousand dollars to several billion, and on a linear axis every box collapses to an invisible sliver while every large outlier stacks against the right edge. Read distances as ratios rather than as differences.
  • Outliers are shown, not trimmed. In enforcement data the outliers are usually the most consequential cases.
  • Techniques are our editorial tags, not charges. A case tagged with several techniques appears in each of their distributions.
  • Penalties for the same conduct vary with cooperation credit, self-reporting and the defendant’s ability to pay, none of which is captured here.
  • Sample sizes are small for most techniques. Treat differences between adjacent rows as unproven.

Source

Computed from this site's own case library, which is compiled from the primary releases of the issuing regulators. Regenerated on every build, so the figures move as cases are added.

Regenerated 2026-10-16

Reuse

Free to reuse with attribution. The chart, the underlying figures and the CSV below are published under CC BY 4.0. Credit Market Manipulation and link back to this page. The regulator releases the data is compiled from are separately available at their own sources, listed on our sources page.

The data

Download CSV · the same figures are rendered below so the page is complete without downloading anything.

Penalty distribution by technique — full dataset
techniquenminq1medianq3maxoutlier_count
price-manipulation5617500475000123683308625000014750000008
ponzi-schemes165100023645110359094500000590500000019
wash-trading322500027990173500049011013250000002
spoofing7148400275000700000195000043643181113
boiler-rooms25100004348877000004000000279103894
pump-and-dump4915000150000307183921856263715856
matched-orders233000015000025000061235433379501
unregistered-distributions911475500001734367875003672637810
undisclosed-control-blocks41147530000150000460928226132425
rule-105-offering-shorts7997396500010665128605942500009
insider-trading345212840578891723335359100000049

All charts · the full case library as JSON