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Spivak

Is it insider trading is if you don’t do anything with the information?

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No. Newswire services receive these kind of press releases in advance all the time.

As long as you don't use or share them, you're fine.

No, it’s not. Someone must make a trade based on non-public info for there to be insider trading.

Alright, then I guess I’ll get into reporting, develop relationships with public companies, get some of these numbers and maybe spill them very carefully to who knows who? There’s always telegram or other for me to share it carefully. No one can find out.

Just like anything other crime, if you do it enough to make serious money they'll dedicate resources to going after it. It's the difference between being a dealer and a kingpin and there's not much money to be made being a dealer.

Also, odds are the SEC is punching the names of anyone who makes it big day trading into some NSA type database and if they know anyone who would have had the information that link will be followed up on.

Yes, the SEC definitely follows up on this, or so I've been told. They're not idiots, and this kind of financial crime is basically super-low-hanging fruit for them (probably because many people make the mistake of assuming they are idiots).

> Yes, the SEC definitely follows up on this

Yes, and they're quite adept at it even if you don't think you're leaving a trace. For example: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2014-55

Interesting how the middleman got off without punishment. Shows how narrow insider trading can get, which speaks the the programmer tendency to assume law is code. Rather law is interpreted and in this case only two of the three parties fell under the SEC enforcement. That neither is going to jail is also notable, SEC can take money and burn a career but stealing from the market is lots safer than selling drugs.

Well, for insider trading, it isn't prohibited by law. It's entirely precedent.

That account sounds like at least one of the 3 provided a detailed description of what happened. The SEC weren't listening into the initial conversations they had - presumably they got wind of the trading and then managed to get enough leverage on one of them to make them talk. If they didn't talk, I wonder what level of evidence the SEC would have.

I got a call from them after a cousin I’ve never met traded the stock of the company I was working at. Anybody who works at a public company sees insider information every day. Anybody who thinks they want to profit of it, especially if they think doing so would be easy, can expect a run in with the SEC.

You make it sound like white collar crime is unprofitable.

Lots of history seems to disagree, with only the occasional person having bad luck.

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