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Comment by sour-taste | Hacker News Reader

There was a recent decision out of Texas that pump and dumps are legal if you do them without directly selling stock to the victims. So I guess that according to Texas what this guy did is totally fine!

[PDF] https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rmMOgPQg...

or coverage from Matt Levine: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-21/pump-a...

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The judge in that case simply does not know what they are talking about. This will be swiftly overturned on appeal.

Wouldn't that mean that you can have a friend do the pump, and you do the dump? Sounds like the guy in the original article did both and therefore wouldn't be saved by that Texas ruling.

The Texas ruling doesn’t (as far as the coverage I’ve read) require that level of separation. Rather just selling to “the market” is enough to insulate you from fraud charges.

Do people actually direct sell stock? At least retail investors

No. Even those that hold directly via a transfer agent don’t directly sell. If that court case holds there is no such thing as securities fraud.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think people can use OTC trades for this (though OTC trading desks typically wouldn't share counterparty information IIUC)

Great idea, now you've just added a RICO charge to the prosecutor's menu

i'll admit i was a little shocked when the case was dismissed. for anyone not familiar with Atlas Trading this page gives a bit of an overview: https://bullishbears.com/atlas-trading-lawsuit/

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