What Is Quote Stuffing?

By Kristi Waterworth – Updated Feb 26, 2025 at 2:37 PM

Key Points

Quote stuffing involves placing and quickly cancelling large orders to manipulate stock prices.
It is illegal and used by large investors to influence market prices for personal gain.
The 2010 Flash Crash, suspected to involve quote stuffing, led to new market safeguards.

There are many ways, neither ethical nor legal, to manipulate equity markets. Quote stuffing is one way and has been at the center of at least one modern controversy.

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Silver dice reading Buy and Sell tumbling across a digital image of stock charts. — Image source: Getty Images.

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Should I Buy Stock Now or Wait?

More money has been lost waiting to buy stocks than in holding stocks through downturns.

Stock Exchanges: Where Shares Are Bought & Sold

The markets where people buy and sell stock come in several different flavors.

Many traders told Berman and his team that they saw the dramatic plunge that discounted solid stocks like Proctor & Gamble (PG +0.38%) by 36% over the course of a few minutes. However, they were so confused by what they saw that they weren't willing to step in and buy, further feeding the suspicion that quote stuffing was involved.

Although the 2010 flash crash was ultimately traced to a London-based futures trader, it also led to more safeguards and rules surrounding high-frequency trading and quote stuffing. The new protections have helped to shield equity markets against this kind of dramatic event, although flash crashes are still believed to happen daily at minuscule scales.

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About the Author

Kristi Waterworth has been a contributing real estate and financial expert at The Motley Fool, covering real estate, investing, and personal finance topics, since 2020. Kristi has been interviewed by various TV media outlets and podcasts for her real estate investing expertise – from residential real estate to digital real estate and everything in between. Kristi’s journalist career spans over 25 years, and she has written about real estate investing, homeownership, and home construction specifically for the last decade. She was also previously a licensed Realtor and general building contractor before the Great Recession and housing market collapse. She holds a bachelor’s degree in American history from Columbia College in Missouri.

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Kristi Waterworth has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.