Live data from Hacker News

SEC charges former Amazon finance manager and family with insider trading

sec.gov

131–140 of 143 posts

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

#131
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always heard the IRS doesn’t care where your income comes from, just that’s it’s reported. IRS website even talks about how to report “illegal income” and “bribes”. And the IRS has no authority beyond tax collection. They can’t do a (non-tax) criminal investigation. Now, could they flag it for the FBI? Sure.

The IRS accepts payments from those living illegally in the country. Not sure how it is now iirc proving a history of paying taxes was part of a successful naturalization process.

Good example.

I had a friend go through naturalization. The illegal presence is dealt with separately, but the tax check is basically "Do you file taxes each year? Do you owe the IRS any money? Ok, you're good."

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

#132
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?

Lol, when I work for JPM IB tech in NYC, I opened a ssh tunnel just to be able to listen to my mp3 collection at home. infotech emailed asking me wtf I was doing with my tunnel. They know everything. Sorry to say that.

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

#133
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Amusingly, this is part of why some folks are deeply terrified of Robinhood: with a few clicks here and there, you’ve just bought yourself 10-15x leverage. I actually think it’s a great thing to let someone easily try out “let me try out options trading, I’ll start with $100”. The write ups about r/wallstreetbets though are sometimes heartbreaking. So like you said, at least you know what you don’t know!

Does robin hood actually allows you to leverage to the point where the loss is beyond your investment? Usually these platforms close/liquidate the position so the maximum you can lose is the money you bet.

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

#134
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, this is part of why some folks are deeply terrified of Robinhood: with a few clicks here and there, you’ve just bought yourself 10-15x leverage. I actually think it’s a great thing to let someone easily try out “let me try out options trading, I’ll start with $100”. The write ups about r/wallstreetbets though are sometimes heartbreaking. So like you said, at least you know what you don’t know!

Does robin hood actually allows you to leverage to the point where the loss is beyond your investment? Usually these platforms close/liquidate the position so the maximum you can lose is the money you bet.

Someone else can probably answer if Robinhood allows you to sell options short, but if you do, you can lose more than your initial purchase/deposit if the price moves faster than Robinhood can forcibly liquidate your position.

You would almost expect this to happen occasionally, if you’re not super careful, due to the massive volatility of options.

Being short out-of-the-money call options will expose you to a ridiculous downside if the stock makes an unexpected upwards move. Easily 10x-100x your deposit.

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

#135
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does robin hood actually allows you to leverage to the point where the loss is beyond your investment? Usually these platforms close/liquidate the position so the maximum you can lose is the money you bet.

Someone else can probably answer if Robinhood allows you to sell options short, but if you do, you can lose more than your initial purchase/deposit if the price moves faster than Robinhood can forcibly liquidate your position. You would almost expect this to happen occasionally, if you’re not super careful, due to the massive volatility of options. Being short out-of-the-money call options will expose you to a ridicu…

That can happen on quite a few other platform in theory but not in practice basically the platforms assume the risk in that case I remember that form the good ole days of online FX options and binary option trading in the late 2000’s.

Basically you always had forced liquidation or some sort of a hedge on the opposite leg that made sure you couldn’t lose more than the leveraged amount you’ve bet on.

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

#136
post #33
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

She was jailed for that in a deal and was charged with much more.

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the recent Twitter attack, where malicious actors were able to post from many high-profile & verified accounts? The attackers could've done just about anything. Moved stocks. Start World War 3. And all they did was try a cryptocurrency scam that netted them $couple-thousand.

Well, that’s because it was literal children going after rare usernames who then pivoted to dumb crypto scams. Which reading this complaint, sounds like the same dumb criminal mindset as these people.

Crypto scams are not dumb. The people that send are dumb. It is the easiest scam to pull off and I used to do it.

Post a page saying you double btc because you stole too much and people throw btc at you.

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

#138
post #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.

How was he not trading?

His company always trades the stock.

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

#139

Pfff... beginners mistakes. There’s a TOR hidden service where you can trade insider information.

Hell, there used to be a company around the corner from where I used to live that actually launched an app based on people giving insider trading.

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

#140
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

That's quite different from an actual insider, not just a random with a tip.

Several years ago I attempted to profit from earnings. I did much research, and would correctly guess beat or miss exptectation, but it seemed the movement afterwards was not correlated to the beat/miss, but more with the change in forward guidance. So, insiders can know the numbers, but if they don't also know the guidance, they can't really profit. Even then, the market would sometimes run in the opposite direction it should have given the news, or gyrate wildly until early the next day.
Post reply on HN