In folklore, a will-o’-the-wisp is a supernatural ghostly floating light found in swamps and marshes that leads unfortunate travelers off safe paths and into dangerous areas. Although “spoof” orders for trades in futures contracts (and other financial instruments) are neither supernatural nor found in swamps, they are similar to will-o’-the-wisps in that spoof orders are fleeting presences intent on leading others astray. Modern futures market will-o’the-wisps, however, are often software algorithms that travel through trading platforms at superhuman speeds, and not the fiery fairy beings portrayed in legends.

The CEA and CFTC Regulations have several provisions that specifically prohibit several specific kinds of trading practices that are categorically considered disruptive or deceptive. Unlike the broad prohibitions against conduct that constitutes malleable and amorphous legal concepts such as fraud and manipulation, the antidisruptive practices proscriptions in the CEA are, generally speaking, more narrow because they explicitly target specific types of trading activities. While these improper disruptive trading practices originated on the crowded trading floors of futures exchanges, many of these tactics have continued to occur in electronic trading environments, such as on CME’s Globex. Indeed, electronic trading environments appear to facilitate some disruptive trading practices. These tactics have colorful names such as spoofing, wash trading, and banging (or marking) the close.