NASD Expels Brokerage for Manipulating E-Tailer Stock

Defunct Irvine brokerage Waldron & Co. was expelled from the National Assn. of Securities Dealers this month for engaging in a host of illegal stock manipulations.

Waldron imploded two years ago when authorities exposed its scheme to inflate the share price of Shopping.com, a Corona del Mar online retailer that it took public.

Waldron allegedly masked the fact that it owned 94% of the e-tailer’s shares by dispersing them across several accounts, some of them fictitious. Firm executives also parked Shopping.com stock in customers’ accounts without their knowledge or consent and issued bogus press releases touting the issue.

NASD suspended the firm’s registration in December 1998 for failing to pay $350,000 in compensatory damages related to Shopping.com.