this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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It's not insider trading because this decision will make the stock price climb in the long term, and any sales would need to be significant to be worth the penalties.
Stock was $39, dropped to $36. $3 difference x 2000 shares sold is a difference of $6000, something considered a rounding error when talking about the sums of money these people have.
This sounds like someone was selling their stocks and buying their kids a house by making small sales to have minimal impacts on stock price, not insider trading.
In reality the people that know their intentions are the ones that pressed the "SELL" button
So it's only insider trading if they get it right? But not just kind of right, like, really right.
If they legit sold their stock because they believed they would lose the value of their asset in the timeframe they were planning on owning it because of their company's policy change, then yes absolutely they should be held accountable.
My argument is that this isn't insider trading, but rather the movement of money for other, legitimate, purposes. I'm not saying it looks good, but it may just be coincidental bad timing that someone wanted to, for instance, pay for a year of their daughter's tuition, or buy their son a home as a wedding present.
A clearer example of insider trading is a politician's husband buying and selling shares of companies prior to public announcements of major government policies, coincidentally the companies directly impacted by those policies which their spouse was involved in enacting.
Doesn't matter if you win or lose, insider trading (illegal kind) is when someone with access to material non-public information, trades based on that info. I believe all publicly traded companies must have policies in place, so that any employees with access to this type of info have trading restrictions. In general, if they want to sell, they need to inform an internal compliance team, and then there may be mandatory waiting periods. For example, they may only be able to sell after 30 day waiting period.
Just finished taking Econ 101, didja?
Yeah no, that's not how it works.