Carl Icahn will pay $2 million to settle SEC charges

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Conway Gittens: I’m Conway Gittens, reporting from the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s what we’re watching today on TheStreet.

The trading day begins with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq looking for their next move after eight days of gains. Stocks aren’t the only thing on the up and up. Gold prices are at an all-time high – trading above $2,500 an ounce. And for the first time in history, a gold bar, which usually weighs about 400 ounces, is worth $1 million.

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And speaking of millions… Veteran Wall Street tycoon Carl Icahn has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges that he used his company’s stock as collateral for billions of dollars in personal loans — without to tell investors. He and his company, Icahn Enterprises, also agreed to pay half a million dollars in civil penalties.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the wrongdoing, which goes back to 2005, is related to his failure to disclose what he was doing to all of his shareholders. “Federal securities laws imposed independent disclosure obligations on both Icahn and IEP. Those disclosures would have revealed that Icahn pledged over half of IEP’s outstanding shares at one point. Because of both disclosure failures, existing and potential investors were deprived of necessary information.”

If those billions of dollars in personal loans had gone bad, then creditors would have seized Icahn Enterprise stock, which would have forced a sale that would have hurt all of the company’s shareholders — all without the shareholders’ knowledge.

Icahn is a Wall Street legend and is said to have partially inspired the villain Gordon Gekko, made famous in the 1987 hit movie “Wall Street.”

That will do for your daily briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, this is Conway Gittens with TheStreet.

Related: Las Vegas Strip casino giant gets a boost from Carl Icahn