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Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

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Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#161

Post by zimpenfish »

rayiner wrote: post #151
noobermin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>high ranking executive risking a jail term to avoid losing 50k of stock is (again IMO), absolutely irrational. You act as if this is a real senario and would have a non-negligible probability of occurring.

There is a non-negligible possibility of this occurring. Insider trading is ridiculously easy to prosecute (the market is closely monitored) and the government regularly seeks prison time for executives. Rich people go to jail all the time for it.

> Rich people go to jail all the time for it.

Is that true? What do you mean by "all the time"?

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#162

Post by saint_fiasco »

icelancer wrote: post #138
throwaway76543 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. I'm a millionaire and I wouldn't risk prison for 200k. Wealth is indeed a proxy measure for certain behaviors, but you're ignoring other even more important behaviors like impulse control and an eye for risk analysis. Most of us aren't wealthy because we engage in unethical practices; we're wealthy because we understand long term planning and self control. Here's a related article you might find interesting abou…

>>Note as well the negative correlation between wealth and crime, which stands in opposition to the association you attempt to draw above. You are pointing the arrow in the wrong direction.

Correlations don't have arrows. They never said there was causation.

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#163

Post by shawnee_ »

yen223 wrote: post #45
korethr wrote: post #7

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.

"But my intuition about a thing and what the law says don't always match" I wish more people on this forum recognized this

People on this forum take the latitude to discuss the differences between the "letter of the law" and the "spirit of the law". They are both supposed to be factored into legal investigations and judgments when deciding someone's guilt or innocence.

Someone who has deep understanding of the letter of law and uses it to semantically defy the spirit of the law (like tax evasion by exploiting loopholes that were not designed for their use case) do, in my opinion, deserve criminal punishment.

The tax code was designed to tax entities who use more than their fair share of public resources to make private profit. Think about the legions of WalMart semi-trucks ripping up highways that most taxpayers pay for; it gets to profit from its use of infrastructure that it uses way more of than the average taxpayer.

Obeying the intent of these kinds of laws as they were written originally requires ethics that many corporate individuals simply don't have.

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#164

Post by mathattack »

fr0sty wrote: post #158
mholmes680 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I struggle understanding options jargon, maybe you can help -- from your tweet: is 2500 alot? 2500 of what - stock that borrowed? $135 is lower than yesterday's price, but higher than today's open @ 125 - does that mean someone who bought the puts can cash out at $10 profit this morning? thanks.

Someone bought 2500 put options. Each option gives the owner the ability to sell 100 shares at the strike price of the option. If whoever owns those options exercises them today (And covers their short position at a price of $125) they will make ~$2.5m on a ~$200k bet.

Exactly - it's the most "efficient" way to make money if you have inside information, because you only have to put a small amount of money down on the option relative to the payoff.

This is why the options market is the first place regulators look on insider trading.

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#165

Post by mankash666 »

wpietri wrote: post #150
mankash666 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a naïve interpretation of my comment. Here's a real product [1] that considers all the pitfalls you enumerated, and achieves what I had in mind. [1]: https://hellobloom.io

It's a pretty straightforward reading of your comment. Bloom is a fancier but also naive attempt. Nobody on that team has experience with loan origination, loan underwriting, loan rating, loan syndication, credit reporting, credit scoring, credit cards, debit cards, or debt collection. Having read the white paper, it is weirdly specific on record formats, and weirdly hazy on almost any important issue. It seems a fin…

Again, your response is typical of incumbents in any sector. AirBnb founders weren't hoteliers, Uber founders weren't taxi industry veterans. Everything you know can be learnt from a book, or obtained by hiring someone like you - and there are PLENTY of your kind to hire.

Now, for every successful Uber, there have been 100 failed attempts at the same. Will HelloBloom be the Uber of credit reporting- can't say. But will credit reporting be disrupted by someone like Hello Bloom, definitely.

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#166

Post by notfromhere »

derekp7 wrote: post #96
ceejayoz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martha Stewart was a billionaire and wound up spending prison time over an insider trading savings of $45,673. Logic doesn't always apply.

I thought she went to prison for lying about her insider knowledge, not the trading itself.

45k still landed her in prison though

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#167

Post by dkfmn »

walshemj wrote: post #149
dkfmn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there are three criteria: 1) Information is material 2) Information is not public 3) Breach of duty through the "trust and confidence" clause. It would be highly unusual for the CFO not to have the burden of confidence but even for a division president it's not clear they'd have corporate officer responsibilities. During compliance training in my old life they covered the classic "overheard in a coffee shop"…

I think all employees are covered by 3 breaching trust is gross misconduct in the UK

oh, that's really interesting!

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#168

Post by mercurialshark »

devonkim wrote: post #152
mercurialshark wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the law was written in cooperation with the people that became wealthy through means that used to be legal and protected themselves... Hey, if nothing else, you are super-confident. Also, way to not generalize or be presumptuous in any capacity. Fucking super buttoned up analysis. It all checks out.

Didn't downvote but I figure I should better support it if someone actually cared enough to criticize... From a trade policy perspective alone we have plenty of supporting evidence among developed countries of self-serving policymaking. Ha-Joon Chang, economist at Cambridge, has written several books criticizing neoclassical economics policies commonly used by both left and right wing policy makers across many develo…

I wrote that comment when I was really tired and went too far trying to make a point. I apologize for the flippant-tone, it was completely unnecessary. Thanks.

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#169

Post by dmix »

Clubber wrote: post #108
timack wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martha Stewart's insider trading saved her ~$45k. At the time she worth around $600m. I agree, not rational.

She wasn't actually convicted of insider trading. After a highly publicized six-week jury trial, Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators

So basically the semantics of an investigation rather than a crime. The type of thing the state resorts to if they still want to prosecute you even if they don't have a good case against you for the original crime?

Take the "making false statements to federal investigators" one for example, the "false statements" don't have to be at all related to the investigation (or eventual prosecution) at hand, they could have nothing to do with her personal financial matters, they just have to something you say that was not true during the course of the investigation.

Or "conspiracy" and "obstruction", both have a long history of providing law enforcement and prosecutors plenty of leeway to take punitive measures regardless of the feasability of the original case.

Very similar to the long history of 'resisting arrest' and 'assaulting a police officer' being used on a more localized level whenever a citizen did not show total obedience to police, regardless if they committed a crime or not.

Re: Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed

#170

Post by wpietri »

mankash666 wrote: post #165
wpietri wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty straightforward reading of your comment. Bloom is a fancier but also naive attempt. Nobody on that team has experience with loan origination, loan underwriting, loan rating, loan syndication, credit reporting, credit scoring, credit cards, debit cards, or debt collection. Having read the white paper, it is weirdly specific on record formats, and weirdly hazy on almost any important issue. It seems a fin…

Again, your response is typical of incumbents in any sector. AirBnb founders weren't hoteliers, Uber founders weren't taxi industry veterans. Everything you know can be learnt from a book, or obtained by hiring someone like you - and there are PLENTY of your kind to hire. Now, for every successful Uber, there have been 100 failed attempts at the same. Will HelloBloom be the Uber of credit reporting- can't say. But wi…

I'm not an incumbent in the industry. Nice try, though.

My issue here isn't with industry disruption, which I generally like. It's with hallucinatory blockchain-based hype. For years I've been hearing that Bitcoin or some other blockchain technology will disrupt money transfer and online purchasing. But Bitcoin never got any foothold in international remittances and is actually in retreat in e-commerce. Now the Bitcoin hype had metastasized into blockchain and ICO hype, but I don't think there's any more meat to it.

But if you're so sure, let's put money down. I have $500 that says no blockchain-based startup will get even 1% of the US credit reporting market in the next 5 years. We can put the bet up here: http://longbets.org

You in?

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