51–60 of 177 posts
If a were a millionaire, I wouldn't risk prison for 200k. Even the litigation to avoid prison could cost 100k.
And this is the kind of thing you know all angles will be looked into (it took a news agency a few hours to unearth this).
If he did it (insider trading), he is very stupid.
So, does this count as insider trading? My intuition says 'yes'. But my intuition about a thing and what the law says don't always match.
Insider trading is any trading performed using non-public knowledge. Theoretically even a pre-scheduled trade could be insider trading, if it relied on non-public knowledge which remained non-public until the time the trade executes. Of course, that's a pretty hard scenario to concoct, so generally pre-scheduled trades 3+ months out are considered safe for even high-level insiders. Not to mention all the extraneous m…
The reasoning, as I heard it, was that all farmers who hedged their own crops with commodities trading, had some amount of insider knowledge just by looking at their own farm/crop/weather. Stealing a data report before it is publicly announced, however, seems like it would violate some laws. Paying to access reports early seems to be a lucrative offering of some of the data providers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No there is not a law against giving legal advice if you're not a lawyer. It's lawyers who are sometimes prohibited from giving legal advice. Non-lawyers have the usual freedom of speech, restricted in the usual ways. Claiming that you are someone you're not on the Internet is so commonplace it is hard to see where any trouble would come of it by itself. Again it's different if you knowingly cause harm to others. I'm…
> No there is not a law against giving legal advice if you're not a lawyer. In most (all, I think) US jurisdictions, providing legal advice is practice of law, and doing it without a license to do so in the state is prohibited (usually, a crime.) This isn't not legal advice and I am not a lawyer. Consult an actual lawyer licensed in your state before deciding whether or not you should provide legal advice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off topic question... Is there a law about giving legal advice in a public forum if you're not a lawyer? Why do people add the disclaimer about not being a lawyer. Generally curious. Moreover, is there a law about impersonating lawyer in a public forum (not that any ethical person would do that of course)?
No there is not a law against giving legal advice if you're not a lawyer. It's lawyers who are sometimes prohibited from giving legal advice. Non-lawyers have the usual freedom of speech, restricted in the usual ways. Claiming that you are someone you're not on the Internet is so commonplace it is hard to see where any trouble would come of it by itself. Again it's different if you knowingly cause harm to others. I'm…
So they give legal advice, then the person reads the advice, and acts on it. If it's wrong then they can sue.
IANAL
So one guy sold 1 mil of stock, the stock dropped 6%, so he avoided a 60k loss. Let's say he expected a 20% drop, and he saved 200k. If a were a millionaire, I wouldn't risk prison for 200k. Even the litigation to avoid prison could cost 100k. And this is the kind of thing you know all angles will be looked into (it took a news agency a few hours to unearth this). If he did it (insider trading), he is very stupid.
So one guy sold 1 mil of stock, the stock dropped 6%, so he avoided a 60k loss. Let's say he expected a 20% drop, and he saved 200k. If a were a millionaire, I wouldn't risk prison for 200k. Even the litigation to avoid prison could cost 100k. And this is the kind of thing you know all angles will be looked into (it took a news agency a few hours to unearth this). If he did it (insider trading), he is very stupid.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most likely yes. Actually if this doesn't count I don't know what is. However just like you, don't take my word, not a lawyer.
Off topic question... Is there a law about giving legal advice in a public forum if you're not a lawyer? Why do people add the disclaimer about not being a lawyer. Generally curious. Moreover, is there a law about impersonating lawyer in a public forum (not that any ethical person would do that of course)?
It's mostly to remind people to not trust advice on the internet. While the person giving legal advice might be correct, they haven't read and understood the law with the legal background a lawyer has.
Credit reporting agencies are the cancer of the modern economy. They are rife with inaccuracies, and on top of that, highly vulnerable to hacking , as software engineering is just a cost for them, not their focus. Their entire function needs to move to the blockchain. Their only value is that of a distributed, trust less ledger, and they charge horrible fees and sit in the middle for doing that terribly
At least credit agencies can remove inaccurate information from your report. They don't make it easy, but they can do it. In a blockchain, how would that be possible?
So one guy sold 1 mil of stock, the stock dropped 6%, so he avoided a 60k loss. Let's say he expected a 20% drop, and he saved 200k. If a were a millionaire, I wouldn't risk prison for 200k. Even the litigation to avoid prison could cost 100k. And this is the kind of thing you know all angles will be looked into (it took a news agency a few hours to unearth this). If he did it (insider trading), he is very stupid.
It's important to distinguish likelihood from impact. The heavy impact is "prison"; a lighter impact is a civil suit from the SEC or a similar regulator. The likelihood is unknown right now. It probably went up the second Bloomberg published this article, so it might have been a better decision a few days ago.
The SEC seems to settle for civil penalties more often than the FBI prosecutes for jail time. Sadly, it's more likely that at least 3 managers will probably spend $200k on lawyers to navigate their statements to the authorities over the next few months.
edit The $60k profit will probably also have to defend them against lawsuits by other stockholders.
I don't know what's fair here.
How can anyone prove that they wouldn't have sold some amount of stock in the nearly 6 months since the hack started? How does a prosecutor prove intent without a very damning self-incriminating statement? Certainly $1m in stock sold at a _very_ suspicious time makes me want to blame this guy, but what if he knows he's getting laid off this week? Does that change the calculus of intent?