If you believe there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, there's no problem profiting off this effect!Yeah, I don't know where I stand on it quite yet. I mean, I won't outright buy Exxon shares to hold long-term. Is it hypocritical to make a short-term trade using options? Yeah, probably. But it's not like that money goes straight into Equifax's pockets, it just adds a minuscule amount of liquidity to a market for abstractions of EFX. Meh, I've got bigger ethical fish to fry right now.
As aside, to add to your list: the private prison company whose stock went down last year when the Feds said they were going to curtail using private prisons. A few seconds of reading confirmed that it's states that make the most use of private prisons, not the Feds. Made bank on that one, can't say I feel good about it. But I also can't articulate exactly why I shouldn't feel good about it other than, "private prisons, yucky!"
I'm pretty sure you could beat the yearly S&P's performance in a single trade for any of those events.
Of the three that come to mind that I've personally traded recently, that is most certainly true (the in-the-money EFX calls I have are up about 300%). Problem is, such scandals need to happen more frequently in order to make a trading strategy out of it. About once or twice a year is as frequently as I see such opportunities come up. One could have made a year's SV salary on EFX calls with a $50K investment, but because it's options that $50K could very easily be worth $0 in just a month or two.