Nonko Trading

Thanks for reading today’s review of Nonko Trading.

This post is a follow up from my original post, Nonko Trading, SCAM OR NOT? If you are not familiar with Nonko Trading, or are unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding Nonko Trading, then I highly recommend that you stop now, and take the time to read my original post. This will put all of the information that I am about to present into proper context.

Before I get into the meat of this review, let me first state that I am going to keep much of my personal opinions out of this review. Rather, I simply want to present as much factual evidence as possible. Ultimately, the reader will need to take the pieces of information, discern what is important and relevant, and then come to their own individual conclusion.

NONKO Trading Had Made Some Powerful Enemies

Nonko Trading has pissed off a lot of very powerful, wealthy, reputable, and well connected people. Since my original post on April 30, 2015, through June 15, 2015, I have spoken with a former SEC attorney, the owners of three separate Canadian stock trading firms, the owners of three separate United States based prop trading firms, the owners three separate United States based retail stock brokerages, software service providers that specialize in back office FINRA compliant software solutions, and software providers specializing in front end trading applications for the retail trader. A lot of you reading this might be thinking, “Who cares?, I only want to know how they treat the client! Do they make payments to the client? That is all that effects me”. If you confine your assessment to just this one factor, then you are really setting yourself up for disappointment. Why? Because all of the people that I have mentioned are all pissed off and they want the SEC, FBI, and FINRA to do something…and they want something done now. So, lets take a look at each of the players in this complex puzzle and how they can effect a non regulated, non compliant company like Nonko Trading.

Why would an SEC attorney be pissed off with NONKO Trading?

In short, the job of many SEC attorneys is to represent the individuals and firms that are attempting to navigate the dangerous reef of confusing regulations and non stop compliance issues that can cost firms and individuals millions of dollars each year. Companies like Nonko Trading have absolutely no interest in complying with United States financial regulations. NONKO flagrantly and recklessly enters into our highly regulated  financial ecosystem and undermines the work and efforts of quite literally, an army of lawyers. Many of these lawyers are former regulators themselves, and many are now lobbyists with close connections with state and federal lawmakers and law enforcement. As you are reading this, you should not be asking yourself if NONKO is a legit company registered in the United States, which of course they are not, but you should be asking yourself how a company like NONKO threatens the livelihood of the army of lawyers, law firms, lobbyists and regulators that are paid millions of dollars each year to protect and represent those firms that comply with United States financial regulations at the state and federal level.

How easy it for an SEC lawyer to complain against a non-compliant company like NONKO Trading? Too easy. I would call this link the “magic button of doom“. How many lawyers have been hitting this button? A lot.

Why would a legitimate Canadian stock trading company be pissed off with NONKO Trading?

Glad you asked…the Canadians have their own regulatory body, once such body is the Ontario Securities Commission. Legitimate Canadian brokerages also have to deal with Canadian regulations. The Canadian regulations are certainly not as strict and cumbersome as United States regulations, in particular the Pattern Day Trading rule, which has pushed many traders to use regulated Canadian brokerages. However, the Canadian brokers can be fierce in keeping non registered, non compliant competitors out. NONKO pissed off several regulated Canadian brokerages. The end result is that the owners of NONKO got pushed out of Canada.

Why would a compliant United States based prop trading firm be pissed off with NONKO Trading?

United States prop trading firms must comply with cumbersome and expensive US regulations. All US based prop traders must have either a series 7 or series 56 license, must pay fee’s and register with FINRA. Neither of these licenses are easy to pass. US based prop firms must make a sizable investment of time and resources in order to just get a trader compliant. Talk to the people at Avatar Securities, or T3 Trading. Ask them their opinion of NONKO Trading. Dont take my word for it. These are companies with significant financial interests that are having their businesses slowly sapped by investors fleeing US based prop trading firms, and opening accounts with highly opaque identities that are non complaint, like NONKO trading. You think these guys are not hitting the “magic button of doom“, causing a stir at the SEC? You bet they are.

Why would a software provider be pissed off with NONKO?

Trading software is a huge business built off of traders paying monthly subscription fees. Companies like DAS and Sterling have valuable franchises built to integrate with the existing networks of broker dealers as well as exchange connectivity. A company like NONKO comes along and builds their home brewed platform named Logix and this threatens the existing order. Companies like DAS and Sterling have to comply with legal requirements before traders can begin using their data feeds, and they must pay fee’s to the exchange. Logix is a Dr. Frankenstein creation of non compliant software that is currently clumsily traipsing through our capital markets. The regulators have no idea who has access to the data, nor are any fee’s being paid to the existing regulatory infrastructure. If you have read any of the posts from Karen Gentile, the owner of DAS, then you can be assured that she has been causing a ruckus and hitting the “magic button“. This is Karen, ringing the closing bell at the NYSE. You don’t get to ring that bell unless you are running a compliant operation.

Someone like Karen Gentile at DAS is highly credible. And very well connected. I have spoken with her personally. She utterly loathes NONKO Trading. Why? Because NONKO perpetuated a fraud using her DAS platform, and letting any sort of fraud onto her network triggered a blood thirsty, mother tigers instinct to go after NONKO Trading. The DAS trading platform is her baby, and NONKO battered and bruised her baby. What did NONKO think would happen?

What about Karen Gentile’s husband, Guy Gentile? Well, it turns out that Karen is married to the owner of SpeedTrader.com and SureTrader.com. Both SpeedTrader.com and SureTrader.com are

compliant companies that are highly reputable companies that spend a great deal of resources to remain in compliance with United States regulations. First, NONKO perpetuates a fraud right in Karen’s kitchen, and to make matters worse…they are poaching clients from her husbands companies; SpeedTrader and SureTrader. You think that Karen and Guy and all the associated parties with these companies are not hitting the “magic button of doom“? Some of you might be thinking, “Oh this is just a food fight between competitors”. Not a chance. This is about a highly regulated ecosystem of players with financial interests being threatened.

Everyone in the food chain, that is making the investment at being compliant is complaining and is pissed off. These are just the civil entities. I have not even gone into the criminal violations as outlined in the Patriot Act. As one of the SEC lawyers explained to me, “this NONKO company will take money from anyone and these funds can be used for a multitude of criminal activities”. For instance, “what if a company employee has insider information on an earnings report. NONKO will gladly accept his bitcoins, or electronic currency that cannot be traced, this is insider trading”. Or, “what if a drug trafficker wants to launder his money? He can deposit money into a NONKO account, execute a few trades and then simply withdraw his laundered funds”. The list of violations is so long and blatantly criminal that I will leave it up to you to imagine how many laws that NONKO is violating.

Not a question of scam or no scam.

The question of Nonko being a scam or not a scam is not the correct question. The proper question should be, how long can this illegal trading operation continue to violate very serious civil and criminal statutes, before the regulators and criminal investigators step in and shut them down? It would be foolish to assume that NONKO is not already being investigated and being monitored. These agencies tend to move very slowly and methodically. Collecting evidence and building their case. I am a perfect example of this, I had FBI investigators spend a year observing me before they finally shut me down. They had agents working in my office as paid employees. I had no idea who they were until they put the handcuffs on me. They maticulously documented every single aspect of my life and how I ran my operation. Recorded thousands of hours of phone calls and intercepted communications that I thought were safe.

In my opinion, the question is not if NONKO will be shut down, but more a matter of when. Why? Because these guys are making incredible efforts at hiding their tracks. For instance, the following document is a wire instruction to fund your NONKO account. Have a look, then let me explain…

Why is this suspicious? First, the wired funds go to National Australia Bank. Once they arrive in Australia, the funds go the beneficiary in the name of Capital Security Bank Limited which is located in the Cook Islands. This organization specializes in hiding money on a really tiny little island. Read their website, they are not shy about it one bit. Deposit your money and no amount of pressure is going to get these guys to release whom actually is holding your money. I especially like how NONKO notifies anyone sending more than $8,000 to first contact them for additional instructions. Why? Because any amount over $9k is a trip wire for the US financial regulators. Banks must report these larger amounts. Another way to fund a NONKO account is via credit card at the following link.

What Is PNL Portal?

Some of you reading this might be wondering what is this PNL portal website? The PNL portal website is the central gathering point for all of the various trading groups that are currently promoting NONKO Trading as a broker/dealer. For instance, Jerremy Newsome at RealLifeTrading.com (whom I reviewed and like) is part of the NONKO promoters network. And so is Chris Grosvenor at DayTradingPower.com and so is, etc, etc. How many people are promoting NONKO Trading? A lot. How did I find them all? It wasn’t easy.

Revealing What Is Hidden

All of the companies and individuals promoting NONKO trading are assigned a unique and decentralized IP address. For instance, DayTradingPower.com customer portal is located at DTP.pnlportal.com which is sitting at IP address 23.23.85.207. However, TradeTechEquities.com has their portal located at TTE.pnlportal.com, sitting on IP address 54.225.137.220. And RealLifeTrading.com has their portal located at RLT.pnlportal.com, sitting at IP address 50.16.227.214. So what does all of this mean? This means that NONKO Trading is actively attempting to hide the locations of all of the promoters by creating different IP paths into pnlportal.com.

Brute Force Revelation

It was actually pretty clever of NONKO Trading in assigning different IP addresses that originate in many different data centers around the world. This keeps people from being able to snoop out all of the affiliated websites that might be parked in the same data center, or using a similar IP address. However, the one clue they could not conceal was the domain name prefix…notice how all of the domains begin with three letters? Example: TTE.pnlportal, RLT.pnlportal, DTP.pnlportal, etc. Since there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, I was able to build every possible combination beginning with A.pnlportal and then B.pnlportal, until AB.pnlportal, ABC.pnlportal, ABCD.pnlportal How many combinations? A fucking lot! It took three computers, processing for three consecutive days to track down every single valid portal entry. Great job NONKO in covering your tracks.

To me, the big question is why go through so much hassle in covering your tracks? All of this decentralization looks so fucking suspicious. Why not just use TTE.nonkotrading.com? Just have everything sitting on a single domain IP address? If you have nothing to hide, why not just keep it all together?

How NONKO grows, and the ensuing regulatory train wreck

Nonko Trading does not try and be found in the traditional sense. In fact, it does everything in its power to remain off of the radar of the search engines. It relies upon trading educators to promote the company. For instance, if you were to stumble upon DayTradingPower.com, you will find a service that is pretty darn good. I should know, I wrote a positive review. However, its a day trading service that is capital intensive and most people do not have $30k to open a day trading account. So, DayTradingPower.com recommends that smaller accounts make a deposit for usually $2k to $5k into a Nonko trading account. This will get them buying power of 20:1 at NONKO. But what DayTradingPower.com is not mentioning is that they are getting paid a fee for every single share that you trade. And so, its in the financial interest of the educator to tell you how wonderful and safe and legal this NONKO Trading is.

However, what people like Chris and rest of these NONKO promoters do not realize is that they are now in legal collusion with NONKO Trading and are now acting as a broker dealer for the sale of registered securities. The SEC rule is very clear, if you receive any commission whatsoever, from a sale of stock, then you are required to register as a broker/dealer. Period, end of discussion. The fines are severe. If the activity is particularly egregious, then the case is handed over to criminal investigators. This is serious stuff folks. Jail time.

The loving embrace of the SEC

So what happens when a firm like NONKO gets taken down by the SEC? Well, I can tell you what will not be happening. The SEC has very little mercy or caring for anyone that knowingly opens an account with an illegal broker dealer. Your money is gone in an instant. Poof. Like a fart in the wind. Go ask the people that had funds deposited with Broad Street Trading? NONKO is nearly a carbon copy of Broadstreet, but NONKO is hell of lot more creative in covering their tracks.

Who Owns NONKO Trading?

Let there be not doubt. There are three owners of NONKO Trading. Ran Armon is an owenr and is currently living in Toronto, Canada and running G6 Trading. Yaniv Avnon is an owner, living in Tel Aviv, Israel. And Naris Chamroonrat is an owner who is most likely currently living in Los Angeles, Ca. Naris “Chucky” Chamroonrat is a US citizen which makes this particular interesting because as a US citizen, and accepting funds from other US citizens, he would be the easiest to apprehend. No, I will not be publishing the addresses of each of these people. I know where they live, but at this time, there is no reason to blast the internet and publish this information. If money starts disappearing, then this obviously will change in hurry.

Prior Allegations Of Fraud

Many of you reading this are probably wondering why I have not devoted much time into the original allegations of NONKO committing fraud while still at DAS trading. The original allegations were pretty intense reading. You can read about it here. NONKO categorically denied these allegations. However, on my original review, I created a document dump and hot line phone number where clients whom had verifiable accounts could provide proof that NONKO had actually committed the fraud. If you are confused, or not aware of those allegations, then you should take a moment and read about those allegations in the above link.

And so, everyone wants to know, did it actually happen? Yes. Karen Gentile did not lie. I have irrefutable proof that NONKO issued simulated trading accounts and then allowed traders to trade on those accounts, and then those simulated losses were subtracted from real money accounts. What Karen said to me over the phone was true, “NONKO clients were using DAS’s simulator, and duped into believing that their trades were actually being executed over the exchange. How often did this happen? How many people were affected? And to what amounts? At this point, I prefer to keep this information handy for law enforcement. However, I will give you a snippet that from a single customer that was effected. The customer prefers to remain anonymous. However, another affected party was Chris Grosvenor at Day Trading Power. I am more than a little disappointed that Chris, after knowing the truth, he continues to promote NONKO.

Current Allegations Of Fraud

By far, the most common allegation that I receive is that NONKO customer orders are not showing up on TOS, known as Time Of Sales, and that pending limit orders are not appearing on the order book. Most NONKO traders are complete newbies and have little clue what is a TOS and or what is a level two order book. Let me take just a moment to explain. If you look the image to the left, you will see a long list of prices that range from 2.60 down to 2.57. Next you will see the size ranging from 100 to 1,000, this is how many shares traded at that price. And finally, you will see a time column, this is the recorded time that these transactions took place. Notice how all of these transactions took place over a only a few seconds. The complaints that I typically receive are that a person executed 500 shares at a certain price, but it never registered on the Time And Sales (TOS). These time and sales columns can move pretty quickly and it can be difficult to see your order pass through, but it should be viewable. Unless, a person is using a simulator. If so, then an order would never pass through the TOS stream.

Several customers have complained to me, and directly brought up this issue with NONKO. The response that NONKO always gives is that the completed order was transacted over a “dark pool”. OK, sure. Maybe the order was transacted over a “dark pool”, however this seems like a very convenient excuse for so many overlapping complaints. I have received so many complaint and dark pool excuses that I am hope NONKO stops using the term dark pools, and start using the more appropriate term, “dark ocean”.

In speaking with Karen at DAS, who is about as credible a person as you can find, she suspects that NONKO is just a stock trading simulator. There is not actually an exchange inter connection. In order to have access to exchange, to buy or sell on the exchange, a person cannot just plug a piece of software into and a wall outlet and begin trading regulated securities, a company needs a prime dealer with a broker dealer license and a clearing firm. To date, I have made over thirty requests to NONKO trading requesting that they reveal who is the clearing firm, or the broker dealer. They simply do not respond. Also, in speaking with clients that currently have active funds at NONKO, I have asked them to specifically ask NONKO who is the clearing firm? NONKO replies that the clearing firm is LogixTrader.com. LogixTrader.com is not a clearing firm, or a broker dealer…it is a piece of software. It is nothing more than a piece of software.

Current NONKO clients need to man up, grab their balls and demand that NONKO reveal the name of the clearing agent, else funds should be pulled in mass. If NONKO cannot produce a clearing agent, then Karen Gentile is correct in describing NONKO as just a fancy video game. Seriously, you whiny spineless NONKO customers…its your money, make NONKO reveal the existence of a clearing firm or pull your money.

Quick Discovery-Using The Level 2 Order Book

A lot of people reading this might have a current NONKO trading account, and also be shitting there pants worrying about if they are actually only using a simulator. Well, there is a quick and easy test that you can execute. All you have to do is pull up the level two screen and then enter a limit to buy or to sell for a stock that has very low trading volume. Your order should pop right up. For instance, the level two screen that you see on the left is showing limit orders to buy on a variety of venues (EDGX, ISEX, ARVA, NSDQ, etc), if you were to place a limit order to buy 500 shares at 2.51…then your order should show up just penny above NITE and just penny below NSDQ. Enter the order size at 800 shares, or a larger size. It will immediately pup up onto the order book.

If your order does not immediately appear onto the order book, then you can be sure that NONKO is going to claim that your order is sitting ready to be filled at yet another, “dark pool”. Laughable. Get your money out. Stop kidding yourself.

Logix: The fox is guarding the hen house

The great thing about companies like DAS, Sterling, and other software applications that have certified connectivity with the exchanges, is that they can detect fraudulent activity relatively quickly. For instance, NONKO was collecting money from average people, and then simply giving said people a simulator provided by DAS. After awhile, people began to complain about orders not showing up on the TOS or the Level Two Order Book. After a little bit of investigation, a software provider can simply isolate the problem and then notify the user of the issue. In the case of NONKO, Karen Gentile simply discovered that Nonko customers were using a simulator. Once she found out, she simply cancelled access for NONKO. In fact, what software provider would not notify immediately notify the authorities and customers with real money accounts? DAS sure did.

But NONKO took it all a step further. After they could no longer pull the scam at DAS, they were forced into a creative solution to keep it going. Just create their own stock trading platform! Logix! And this is the fundamental question…just what is Logix? To me, it sure seems like Logix is the fox, and your trading funds are clucking peacefully and unknowingly inside the hen house known as NONKO.

How long can these scams perpetuate?

As a former scammer, that shamefully participated in multiple ponzi schemes, the central foundation of the scam is always the same. Proving to customer B that customer A could get his money out. And with NONKO, they always fall back to that central and well worn argument, “Who has not been paid?”. Folks, this is very last reason why you should trade with NONKO. Having other people create videos saying that they are getting paid by NONKO is pure nonsense. Having a trading educator tell you that they are getting paid by NONKO is pure nonsense. Dont believe this for a moment. Ponzi schemes can go on for years and years. And considering that most traders fail, in the case of NONKO, this thing could go on perpetually.

A look into my NONKO crystal ball

So how does NONKO finally unravel? In my opinion, it will not be because traders cannot withdraw funds. The simple fact is that the average trader at NONKO is the very essence of the newbie, perfect lamb for the slaughter type trader. The vast majority of NONKO customers have no clue what they are doing. They put in a few thousand dollars, lose their money and then go back to their day job delivering pizzas or fixing roads. The dream of becoming a sports car driving, mansion owning, gold watch wearing, stripper pole hustling, super trader is just a dream that a trading educator sold them on a slick website.

The end of NONKO will come from within the very machine that keeps the securities industry chugging along. The end will come from people with vested interests in maintaining the integrity of the markets themselves. It will come from a cluster of complaints from SEC lawyers, or a brokerage like TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Interactive Brokers. Or a compliance officer at some unheard of brokerage. Or from a software provider that has invested millions of dollars into a compliant trading application but is now incensed that a hokie, unstable trading application named Logix is eating into their subscriber base. It might be from the compliant US based prop firms that have to put people through expensive series 7 or series 56 licensing programs, it might be that FINRA starts pushing buttons at the SEC, it might the FBI investigating allegations of money laundering or insider trading. The reasons are many. And NONKO has certainly pissed off a lot of people. But I can almost guarantee that the catalyst will not be from the poor little guy that funded his trading account by maxing out his $2k credit limit. Or the knucklehead that was foolish enough to wire his money to island with a funny name. It will come from a place of power, that is tired of these three shit faced punks moving into their income stream.

Well that its for now. I know I am going to get a lot of haters coming at me from every angle. But this is just as I see it. After 45 days of tireless digging, investigating, and interviewing the relevant players…I am 99% certain how this is going to end.

Oh, and one final note…this little video came from a poor NONKO customer that called me repeatedly, very upset because the Logix platform kept mysteriously and unexpectedly executing trades without his knowing. The poor guy was terribly frustrated because these mystery trades for random stocks would just appear on his account. He would have to quickly fumble through the Logix platform attempting to exit these mystery trades. All the while, these trades were costing him commissions and smallish amounts. Ran, Yaniv, and Chucky thought the poor old guy a fruitcake and were sure he was lying. But I told him to use a screen recorder to capture these mysterious and unwanted trading events. After one trade cost him over $700, he finally had enough and took my advice. He screen recorded the event using his iphone. Yep, he caught it on tape and NONKO finally believed him. As for the trading losses on these mystery trades, the poor guy had to eat all of it. 1000 shares of AMAT. This is why you don’t let the fox guard the hen house. Also, the guy that keeps calling me and leaving me messages that he needs help logging into his NONKO account because he forgot his password…please, please stop calling me. You need to contact NONKO, I cant help with your lost password.