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SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

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Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#31

1.4M in profits? Doesn't that seem like chump change? Like if you had insider information couldn't you buy options a make much more? Assuming your info was guaranteed to play out predictably. And if it wasn't is it really any better than general speculation?

Perhaps they had finite capital to start with.

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#32
From the complaint, it was OTM calls and puts, but it seemed like they were trying to decide how much to go in.

> 42. Prior to the completion of Bohra’s initial review, her Husband had purchased 500 Amazon shares in put options in his account on January 8. These put options had an expiration date of February 16, 2018, and they represented his expectation that Amazon’s stock price would fall by that date.

> 48. During this same period, Bohra’s Husband sold the put options that were held in his account and instead purchased both Amazon common stock and Amazon call options in his account as well as accounts belonging to Bohra’s Father-in-Law and Bohra’s Mother-in-Law, now betting that Amazon’s stock price would increase.

> On the morning of January 22, 2018, Bohra’s Husband again logged in from his home and sold the 500 Amazon shares in put options that were in his account and replaced them with a purchase of 1,000 Amazon shares in call options. That afternoon, Bohra’s Husband logged in from his workplace to purchase 4,000 Amazon shares in call options in his account; 2,000 Amazon shares in the same call options in one of Bohra’s Mother-in-Law’s accounts; 1,000 Amazon shares in the same call options in another of Bohra’s Mother-in-Law’s account and 1,000 Amazon shares in the same call options in Bohra’s Father-in-Law’s account. The call options purchased that afternoon had the same strike price and expiration date.

> 51. Over the next few days, Bohra’s Husband and Bohra’s Father-in-Law continued to purchase Amazon common stock and call options, selling call options they had purchased on January 22 and 23 and replacing them with new call options at higher strike prices that they purchased on January 24, 25, and 26, and on February 1.

> 53. By the time that Amazon’s fourth fiscal quarter and year end 2017 earnings was 11 announced on February 1, 2018, Bohra’s Husband and Bohra’s Father-in-Law had spent more than $850,000 on purchasing Amazon call options and common stock in order to trade, at least in part, based on the material nonpublic information that Bohra had provided.

> 56. On February 1, 2018, after the market closed, Amazon announced its fourth fiscal quarter and year end 2017 earnings. The next day, February 2, 2018, Amazon’s stock price increased 2.87% over the prior day’s closing price.

> 58. In total, accounts belonging to Bohra’s Husband, her Father-in-Law, and her 10 Mother-in-Law made a profit of approximately $664,000 by trading Amazon common stock and Amazon call options ahead of Amazon’s fourth fiscal quarter and year end 2017 earnings announcement.

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#33
post #19

1.4M in profits? Doesn't that seem like chump change? Like if you had insider information couldn't you buy options a make much more? Assuming your info was guaranteed to play out predictably. And if it wasn't is it really any better than general speculation?

People do really dumb things for relatively small amounts of money. Look up examples of corruption in US city administrators. You’ll see people who throw away their career over $30k.

Martha Stewart was jailed for avoiding a loss of ~$45k USD.

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#35

1.4M in profits? Doesn't that seem like chump change? Like if you had insider information couldn't you buy options a make much more? Assuming your info was guaranteed to play out predictably. And if it wasn't is it really any better than general speculation?

Depends on what they initially put in. Lets say you made 1.4mil of 100k investment. That would be pretty good.

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#36
post #6

Too bad Matt Levine is out, I'm sure he would have a good time talking about just how terrible an idea this was. I assume these fools went with the classic "buy a shit ton of illiquid and thinly traded OTM options" route.

See my quotes from the complaint. They definitely seemed to have transacted a lot, made a decent amount of money, but they mustn’t have been that out of the money (they put in like $800k to make another $600k, so they probably traded in the money but with upside).

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#37

1.4M in profits? Doesn't that seem like chump change? Like if you had insider information couldn't you buy options a make much more? Assuming your info was guaranteed to play out predictably. And if it wasn't is it really any better than general speculation?

It is quite hard to profitably trade on earnings, even if you know what the financial results of a company will be. Try your own luck/skill in the Insider Trading Game: https://insider-trading-game.netlify.app/

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#38

1.4M in profits? Doesn't that seem like chump change? Like if you had insider information couldn't you buy options a make much more? Assuming your info was guaranteed to play out predictably. And if it wasn't is it really any better than general speculation?

This is just a show, to make it clear they won't abide insider trading, from people who are only making 6 figures from it.

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#39
post #19

1.4M in profits? Doesn't that seem like chump change? Like if you had insider information couldn't you buy options a make much more? Assuming your info was guaranteed to play out predictably. And if it wasn't is it really any better than general speculation?

People do really dumb things for relatively small amounts of money. Look up examples of corruption in US city administrators. You’ll see people who throw away their career over $30k.

The people running the Las Vegas convention center threw away their careers for $90,000 in airline gift cards.†

And not even good airline gift cards. Southwest Airlines.

If I'm going to jeopardize my career, it's not so I can fly free to Albuquerque.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/investigations/2nd-former-lvcv...

Re: SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

#40
post #8

As alleged, the family reaped illicit profits of approximately $1.4 million from their unlawful trading in Amazon securities. Did anyone really need insider information to know Amazon stock was going to rise? Although $1.4 million is life changing amount of money, I feel like for these people who were already being generously compensated in Amazon stock, it probably wasn't worth the risk, especially given the quote b…

> Did anyone really need insider information to know Amazon stock was going to rise?

1. The complaint also lists allegations of profits made from put options.

2. Many of the other allegations in the complaint are also for short term options, which wouldn't really be helped at all by a long-term expectation of a rise in Amazon's stock. These are bets on single day movements made upon earnings announcements.

3. Legally, it doesn't matter if the inside information was plausible or implausible, helpful or unhelpful. All that matters is that a trade was made using privileged information that isn't available to the rest of the market.

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