The SEC alleges that on October 25, 2012, a registered representative named David Miller came to work at Rochdale Securities LLC and, by the end of the day, had taken the entire firm down through a very misguided scheme. 

The SEC alleges that Miller engaged in a series of "rogue" trades in Apple stock on the day that Apple announced its quarterly earnings. In short, the SEC charges, Miller's customer placed an order to purchase just 1,625 shares of Apple stock, but Miller instead ordered the purchase of a total 1.625 million shares. According to the SEC, Miller's "deliberate, brazen, and ultimately ill-conceived" plan was that he would 

share in the Customer's profit from selling the 1,625,000 shares if Apple's stock price increased following the expected earnings announcement later that day. Alternatively, if Apple's stock price decreased, Miller planned to claim that he inadvertently misinterpreted the size of the Customer's order, and planned for his employer, Rochdale, to take responsibility for the unauthorized purchase and suffer the losses.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the alleged scheme backfired when Apple stock fell following the earnings announcement, and Rochdale was forced to take responsibility for the loss of $5.3 million that was caused by the unauthorized purchase. Covering the loss caused the value of Rochdale's available liquid assets to fall below regulatory limits required of broker-dealers. The SEC's complaint states that Rochdale effectively ceased operations after suffering the loss--virtually all of Rochdale's staff left for other jobs or were let go in November 2012 and Rochdale filed to withdraw its registration with the Commission in February 2013.

Hmmmm.... Google Glass, anyone?