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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

#71

Post by mcny »

mc32 wrote: post #61
timack wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think she gets a bad rap. Obviously being wealthy makes her unsympathetic, but that's peanuts. And they 'got' he for 'lying' and not for securities fraud -among the original charges. But the thing is there are much bigger fish to fry --why not go after international investors who have sheel companies within shell companies, etc. But... I mean, I guess this is a career bump or bonus for someone doing investigations.

I think Martha Stewart was a classic example of "do not talk to the police" but maybe I was wrong...

woeirua said it best

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24622010

> This family will likely be ruined by these charges. Even if they successfully defend against these charges, the lawyer fees will wreck them financially.

> Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has literally gotten a slap on the wrist for multiple flagrant violations of securities law. There are definitely two justice systems in the US. The ultra-rich do not play by the same rules that you and I do.

I think I can extend it to Martha Stewart and Michael Flynn.

> In December 2017, Flynn formalized a deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller to plead guilty to a felony count of "willfully and knowingly" making false statements to the FBI, and agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel's investigation.

> In January 2020. Flynn moved to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming government vindictiveness and breach of the plea agreement.

> The United States Department of Justice announced that it intended to drop all charges against Flynn on May 7, 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Flynn

What kind of circus is this?

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

#72

Post by celticninja »

mrich wrote: post #4

That's pocket change compared to some of the other things going on out there the SEC does not even investigate.

These are show prosecutions. The really big frauds have been going on so long that the SEC will look foolish if they bring them down. This is just showing that they are doing something.

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

#73

Post by ahelwer »

woeirua wrote: post #59

This family will likely be ruined by these charges. Even if they successfully defend against these charges, the lawyer fees will wreck them financially. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has literally gotten a slap on the wrist for multiple flagrant violations of securities law. There are definitely two justice systems in the US. The ultra-rich do not play by the same rules that you and I do.

Using material information from your white-collar job to do some inside trading isn't the go-to example for the "two justice systems" of the US. You'd have to be immensely privileged, almost certainly in the top 10% income/wealth bracket for the entire USA, to have access to & be able to effectively act on this information. To put it in other terms: this person wasn't a capitalist, but they were a member of the professional-managerial class. I'm not shedding any tears.

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

#74

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

woeirua wrote: post #59

This family will likely be ruined by these charges. Even if they successfully defend against these charges, the lawyer fees will wreck them financially. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has literally gotten a slap on the wrist for multiple flagrant violations of securities law. There are definitely two justice systems in the US. The ultra-rich do not play by the same rules that you and I do.

> Even if they successfully defend against these charges

They’ve already admitted culpability:

“All three Bohras have consented to the entry of final judgments permanently enjoining them from further violations of the charged provisions, and ordering them to pay total disgorgement of $1,428,094, total prejudgment interest of $118,406, and total penalties of $1,106,399.

In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington today filed criminal charges against Viky Bohra.”

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

#75

Post by gavinray »

boulos wrote: post #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…

> 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

> Amazon’s stock price increased 2.87% over the prior day’s closing price.

> 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

Am I stupid?

$850,000 * 1.0287 = $874,395, which is $24,395 profit.

Where are the other ~$640,000 coming from?

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

#76

Post by filmgirlcw »

boulos wrote: post #60

For those wondering “really, they had the Amazon earnings ahead of time and only made $1.4M?” this reminded me of a good Matt Levine writeup about a group of folks who obtained massive numbers of earnings reports ahead of time [1]. Having the clear knowledge of the earnings report doesn’t give you perfect knowledge on how to trade it / the reaction! > Their performance is statistically significantly greater than that…

Right, stocks go down after earnings all the time, even when earnings are good, because investors want to capture some of that value. There is often a pop a day or so later, but it's not so simple to time.

And given the relatively low amounts we're talking about in this case, even a perfectly-timed trade not be as beneficial since it is going to likely be behind those who are making the same trade in larger volumes at the same time.

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

#77

Post by kortilla »

woeirua wrote: post #59

This family will likely be ruined by these charges. Even if they successfully defend against these charges, the lawyer fees will wreck them financially. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has literally gotten a slap on the wrist for multiple flagrant violations of securities law. There are definitely two justice systems in the US. The ultra-rich do not play by the same rules that you and I do.

These are not the same laws so it’s dumb to compare them. If Musk was caught front-running the market with trades before earnings them you would have a point.

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

#78

Post by i1856511 »

woeirua wrote: post #59

This family will likely be ruined by these charges. Even if they successfully defend against these charges, the lawyer fees will wreck them financially. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has literally gotten a slap on the wrist for multiple flagrant violations of securities law. There are definitely two justice systems in the US. The ultra-rich do not play by the same rules that you and I do.

Who are you, just the regular, salt of the earth type rich?

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

#79

Post by fnord77 »

kache_ wrote: post #28
eel wrote: post #26

> On January 15, 2018, Bohra used her work computer to search Google for “AMZN.” How does the SEC know this? Is it most likely browser history? Google account history? Corporate monitoring software?

Amazon probably had to comply with giving up the corporate monitoring data most likely.

the search query would be TLS encrypted. Amazon snoopware wouldn't be able to see it

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

woeirua wrote: post #59

This family will likely be ruined by these charges. Even if they successfully defend against these charges, the lawyer fees will wreck them financially. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has literally gotten a slap on the wrist for multiple flagrant violations of securities law. There are definitely two justice systems in the US. The ultra-rich do not play by the same rules that you and I do.

[deleted]
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