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$70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

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Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#421

Post by tradethedelta »

tirant wrote: post #160
w10-1 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good cover: publicly release a rumor via a random tiny outlet (along with a flurry of other rumors). Then if questioned, just say you heard it there.

Benzinga is not a tiny outlet at all. There’s quite some trading platforms that distribute their news to their customers, like Interactive Brokers.

Benzinga has probably 40 writers or so. And they do syndicate out to other platforms. They also sell their real-time web traffic and ticker attribution data to hedge funds who will trade on the info.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#422

Post by eru »

ascorbic wrote: post #207
eru wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also staking 2.5M is "small change" for true insiders. Why? A secretary or janitor or a intern could also be an insider. Or are they No True Scotsmen?

That was just one of many trades. The follow-up has deatils of many more https://data-and-politics.ghost.io/this-is-what-insider-trad...

Sorry, I was just replying to the general point. I am sure there's lots more details for this particular case.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#423

Post by eru »

DeathArrow wrote: post #103
eru wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also staking 2.5M is "small change" for true insiders. Why? A secretary or janitor or a intern could also be an insider. Or are they No True Scotsmen?

>Why? A secretary or janitor or a intern could also be an insider. Or are they No True Scotsmen? I thought the article itself and comments here presume bad faith on behalf of the highest ranking officials.

Yes, sorry, I was only replying to the general point.

About the specifics we have here:

It's sad that the highest ranking officials are willing to corrupt themselves over a few million here or there. (And that's already pretty high by corruption standards. Usually you here of even much lower bribes etc being enough.)

To be pithy: I'm not angry that you can buy officials and politicians. I'm angry that the price is so low.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#424

Post by eru »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #126
eru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insider trading in the US is more about misappropriating information that belong to a party you have fiduciary duties to, not so much about harm to the public. For example, imagine you are working for Warren Buffet and you learn that he has quietly bought some stocks and next weeks he's going to announce that. Assume that this announcement will reliably make the stock trade up. If you trade on that information, that'…

>That's an illustration that insider trading law in the US is not supposed to protect the public. From [0]: >Because insider trading undermines investor confidence in the fairness and integrity of the securities markets, the SEC has treated the detection and prosecution of insider trading violations as one of its enforcement priorities. So it _kinda_ is supposed to protect the public. 0. https://www.investor.gov/intr…

Keep in mind that the legal theories of the SEC are distinct from what judges go by.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43662242

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#425

Post by eru »

throwanem wrote: post #168
eru wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eh? If nothing else, doesn't it magnify the public's risk beyond whatever impact Buffet could have on his own? How can you possibly claim there is no difference? Let me be more explicit: Warren Buffett usually doesn't physically execute his own trades. So the only difference between the two scenarios I outlined is that in the second one Warren Buffett tells you (as his employee) to trade. In the first one, you trad…

If you have clients, now would be a good time for you to become very curious about something called "the principal-agent problem," rather than wait till some prosecutor mentions the phrase before a dock in which you, if permitted a chair, are sitting.

Do you mean the general 'you', or me specifically?

Fiduciary duty is an important concept in any case, yes.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#426

Post by eru »

dataflow wrote: post #166
eru wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eh? If nothing else, doesn't it magnify the public's risk beyond whatever impact Buffet could have on his own? How can you possibly claim there is no difference? Let me be more explicit: Warren Buffett usually doesn't physically execute his own trades. So the only difference between the two scenarios I outlined is that in the second one Warren Buffett tells you (as his employee) to trade. In the first one, you trad…

You completely missed the point. It had nothing to do with who is executing the trades. >> If nothing else, doesn't it magnify the public's risk beyond whatever impact Buffet could have on his own? I am saying that when you let others pull the same trick in addition to Buffet himself, they can now bring their own additional funds to play with -- meaning they can make more trades and cause even more damage than Buffet…

> I am saying that when you let others pull the same trick in addition to Buffet himself, they can now bring their own additional funds to play with -- meaning they can make more trades and cause even more damage than Buffet could inflict on his own.

Buffett is not inflicting damage on anyone by trading on his intentions. Neither would anyone else.

Also: the typical 'insider' in insider trading cases has far less budget to bring to bear than the typical principal. Eg Warren Buffett (and Berkshire Hathaway) are richer than Warren Buffett's assistant.

Also: 'insider trading' is perfectly legal for commodities and foreign exchange, and the markets in these work perfectly well.

> Why don't you start with someone poor instead of Buffet, then add Buffet to the equation, then try to claim that bringing the billionaire into the equation makes no difference, rather than the other way around?

I'm very poor compared to Warren Buffett. If Warren Buffett wanted to trade on any information I held, I'm very sure we could work out a deal.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#427

Post by eru »

multjoy wrote: post #158
koolba wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Ukraine?

They’re literally fighting for their lives. Nobody wants elections in wartime, not least because polling stations become targets. You need to lay off the MAGA talking points.

> Nobody wants elections in wartime, not least because polling stations become targets.

Nobody is a strong word. Lots of people want elections, especially in wartime. And lots of other people don't want elections.

But it doesn't matter: the constitution of Ukraine doesn't allow elections during wartime.

I think by default constitutional rules should be followed, unless there are very good reasons not to.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#428

Post by eru »

multjoy wrote: post #410
thatcat wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conscripted might disagree and desire a leader who will pursue a peaceful solution, this conclusion is supported by the high number of deserters.

Peaceful solution to an invasion? How does that work, exactly?

Well, the invader is the last party to want a war: they'd be happy to just take over.

Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014 was almost as 'peaceful' as the German takeover of the Sudetenland in the 1930s.

All in all, my comment is just a convoluted way that sometimes the price to pay for peace is too high.

In addition, there's also pre-commitments that make everything more complicated: as a potential victim of invasion, you might want to pre-commit to defending long beyond any reasonable threshold, in the hopes that this will deter invasion. Sometimes your bluff gets called, and then you need to actually fight to maintain your credibility.

Compare mutual assured destruction in nuclear war: nuking Moscow in retaliation for the Soviets nuking New York isn't going to bring anyone back from the dead. But it's what you pre-commit to in order to deter the bombing of New York in the first place.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#429

Post by eru »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #316
thatcat wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conscripted might disagree and desire a leader who will pursue a peaceful solution, this conclusion is supported by the high number of deserters.

Very possible, but you should provide data. The data we have suggests that Zelensky's approval is extremely high among the public and the consensus not to violate the constitution to hold elections during wartime is unanimous within the government.

I guess unanimous is too high a bar amongst any larger group of people.

But I can very well believe that the consensus is virtually unanimous.

Re: $70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money

#430

Post by eru »

mopsi wrote: post #390
Ray20 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nobody wants elections in wartime THE GOVERNMENT doesn't want elections in wartime. Most people want. >not least because polling stations become targets. I think this is pure gaslighting. If we are talking about Ukraine, Putin is one of the main supporters of holding elections there. And almost certainly not because he wants to bomb some polling stations, but because he is confident that people will vote for a candi…

The only likely candidate close to Zelenskyy in popularity is Zaluzhnyi, the former commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. That's not a person who sees surrender as an option. All major political factions oppose holding elections now, because they expect Zelenskyy's popularity to fade after the war ends and believe their candidates will have better chances then.

> All major political factions oppose holding elections now, because they expect Zelenskyy's popularity to fade after the war ends and believe their candidates will have better chances then.

Well, that, and also the constitution doesn't allow election during wartime.

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