Michael J. Meehan (1891–1948) was a

stock trader A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an inve ...

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

during the 1920s and 1930s. The

Securities and Exchange Commission The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Its primary purpose is to enforce laws against market m ...

(SEC) forced him out of trading in 1935 as the first individual they prosecuted. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

he purchased a controlling stake in the

Good Humor Good Humor is a Good Humor-Breyers brand of ice cream started by Harry Burt in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, in the early 1920s with the Good Humor bar, a chocolate-coated ice cream bar on a stick sold from ice cream trucks and retail outlet ...

ice cream company.

Background

Meehan was born in

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the River Ribble, Ribble Valley, east of Preston ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in 1892, but grew up in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

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

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

seats available. After six years as a ticket broker, Meehan used his connections to get himself 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 The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

(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 A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. The market has no control over the stock price on open on the ex ...

. This brought the company to the attention of Meehan and he purchased a controlling stake in the company.

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 The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (also called the Exchange Act, '34 Act, or 1934 Act) (, codified at et seq.) is a law governing the secondary trading of securities (stocks, bonds, and debentures) in the United States of America. A landm ...

. 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 The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), is an American futures exchange, futures and options exchange that was founded in 1848. On July 12, 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form CME Group. CBOT and three other excha ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meehan, Michael J. 1892 births 1948 deaths People from Blackburn Businesspeople from New York City American stock traders British emigrants to the United States 20th-century American businesspeople