Aren't public company executives always required to sell on a predefined schedule?
Insider trading is a crime that is definitely enforced and comes with serious consequences. The SEC regularly publishes a list of people who have been convicted and it made a record number of convictions last year (nothing surprising since the population keeps growing). Martha Stewart was not exceptional. She was convicted because she committed crimes.
I don't appreciate the linking you've done there. I do not condone or participate in insider trading nor do I personally know anyone who does. I actually want it regulated and prosecuted much more strictly.
> The SEC regularly publishes a list of people who have been convicted and it made a record number of convictions last year
How many of those are CEOs, executives, or board members at large corporations or politicans? The point being that powerful and wealthy people can often get away with it. See Musk's market manipulation.
The entire point of my comment and the one I replied to was to point put the several loopholes that very probably allow rampant insider trading.
I would even go so far as to question whether CEOs, executives, and board members should even be allowed to own stock in their company and related industries given the level of conflict of interest. Certified accountants can't even hold the broadest of broad market ETFs in an IRA if the ETF is even tacitly related to a client. In other words, any trading done by top-level management at major corporations is likely technically insider trading.
Plausible deniability.
Can the FTC show company leadership knew the announcement would be a "stock tanking" one? After all, why would they intentionally do that? Price increases are positive announcements for many companies.