Live data from Hacker News

SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

sec.gov

81–90 of 143 posts

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

#81
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think she was jailed for obstruction of justice / lying to investigators. She had to pay civil penalties for the actual loss avoided.

True, but she wouldn't have had to lie to investigators if she hadn't tried to dodge the loss.

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

#82
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.

I understand that these are not equivalent violations.

That said it's not dumb to say that the SEC sure seems to be very selective in which laws they actually enforce with teeth versus which ones they seem to just let slide.

If any other CEO had done what Musk has done, they would have been fired by their board, and hopefully the SEC would have fined them, and prevented them from serving as an executive in a publicly traded company again. It's absurd.

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

#83
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.…

Options are non-linear and highly leveraged (usually 100:1)

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

#84
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.…

Options go up/down in value at a different rate than the underlying stock. This is known as the "delta" (one of the "greeks"). More info here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/delta.asp

A 2.87% change in the stock can move option values quite a bit. Example:

https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/AMZN/volatility-greek...

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

#85
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.

This is absolutely true but let’s not pretend this family didn’t violate the law here either. Like, there should be a middle ground between “if you’re rich enough, you get away with anything” and “it’s acceptable for a person in finance to share insider information with family members so they can profit.”

>let’s not pretend this family didn’t violate the law here either.

No actually, let's do pretend this family didn't violate the law here. Let's assume that allegedly means just that. We have this crazy double standard in the US, we want to assume the police are incompetent, but then when they accuse someone we assume they are guilty.

How about we assume this is a competent accusation that may or may not be factual, and leave it to the courts to decide. Whether or not we believe the court system needs reform to make it more affordable/just is a valid point, but let's assume that by reading the Cliff's Notes (press release) of this case we don't know enough to decide guilt.

Edit: Courts should be affordable and just for all. I believe paying more shouldn't get you special treatment and not being able to pay shouldn't get you harsher judgements. The difficulty is in finding that balance.

Edit 2: Well shit I was wrong, I missed the part where they agreed to the charges? Not sure how that works, beyond my limited knowledge on the law, but.... it looks like they plead guilty.

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

#86
post #79
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Snoopware is often installed on the laptop itself, not merely listening in the middle.

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

#87
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.

But Mr. Musk wasn’t trading on the price swings that his tweets created.

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

#88
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, and it's weird but it turned out that Al Capone jeopardized his entire empire over just not paying taxes on $100k in income. Strange that despite his incredible business acumen he committed this one small crime.

The problem is that when you report the income the IRS wants to know where it came from. If you can't rightly say that's a red flag of its own. So you either admit(or strongly imply) that you run a criminal enterprise or you evade taxes. Hidden option 3 is buying a laundromat and a couple of video game arcades.

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Options are non-linear and highly leveraged (usually 100:1)

And it has become clear to me now that I have dipped well out of my wheelhouse.

Thanks for the attempt at explanation at least haha. (Though to me, this sounds like a monopoly-money game, really odd concept).

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

#90
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a net worth of over $300 million.

I thought it was interesting and inexplicable (to me) that she would even bother buying a handful of shares and then selling them based on insider information. It makes no sense to me that someone who already had that much money would want to waste her time and attention on making a few extra dollars. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying I don't understand why she would even be interested.

1) If you operate in the global super-elite you lose sight of the fact that actions can even have consequences. Especially before ubiquitous cell phone videos, you could scream obscenities at a poor store clerk and nothing would happen to you. There are very few things that $300 million can't buy your way out of.

2) There's a thrill of playing the stock market that's just like the thrill of playing the lottery or poker.

Post reply on HN