Michael J. Meehan was a stock trader

Stock trader

A stock trader or a stock investor is an individual or firm who buys and sells stocks in the financial markets. Many stock traders will trade bonds as well...

 on Wall St during the 1920s and 1930s. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) forced him out of trading in 1935 as the first individual they prosecuted. During the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 he purchased a controlling stake in the Good Humor

Good Humor

Good Humor is an American brand of ice cream novelties sold from ice cream trucks as well as stores and other retail outlets. Originally, Good Humors were chocolate-coated ice cream bars on a stick, but the line was expanded over the years to include a wide range of novelties...

 ice cream company.

Background

Meehan was born in Blackburn, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1892, but grew up in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. After attending public schools in New York, he became a theater ticket seller on Wall St. As a ticket broker in New York's financial district, brokers requested the best Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 seats available. After six years as a ticket broker, Meehan used his connections to get him a seat on the New York Curb Exchange. Three years later he had saved $90,000 to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

 (NYSE).

Good Humor

Meehan was an early investor in the Good Humor ice cream company. In what some call nothing more than a favor, he invested in the company as a favor to an old friend, the father-in-law of the franchise own, Tom Brimer. During the stock market Crash of 1929, when most other stocks lost their value, Good Humor paid high dividends. This brought the company to the attention of Meehan and he purchased a controlling stake in the company.
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SEC fraud

In 1935, Meehan planned to manipulate the stock price of Bellanca Aircraft. Meehan used the strategy of 'matched orders' which had him manipulating the volume of the stock by frequently buying and selling the issue. By increasing the volume, Meehan believed he could generate interest in the company. Within a few months, the public had followed Meehan into Bellanca and pushed the share price up from $1.75 to $5.50. After Meehan completed his manipulation and sold the stock, the shares fell to their original price. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to prosecute Meehan under the new Securities Exchange Act. This would be the first punitive action taken by the SEC. The commission expelled Meehan from his seats on the NYSE, and also on the Curb Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade

Chicago Board of Trade

The Chicago Board of Trade , established in 1848, is the world's oldest futures and options exchange. More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and eTrading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million...

.