Hacker News Reader

I think you are confusing "analyzing public information in a new way" with "getting access to non-public information". The former is what all smart traders do, the latter is illegal.

View on HN

Getting access to non-public information is, in fact, not illegal. Using non-public information from sources with a fiduciary duty to the company is illegal. You can create non-public information in arbitrarily complicated ways. For example, you could hire a satellite firm to put spy cams over every WalMart parking lot and then count the cars in them, then produce a report about WalMart's quarterly sales weeks before the market heard about it from WalMart. That report is non-public, right? Totally legit to trade off of.

Satellite analysis of WalMart parking lots is, by the way, an actual thing. (It is an actual thing which suggests, among other things, that if you are a retail investor, you should strongly question whether you really have insight into companies which professional investors do not have.)

You completely missed his point about the difference between non-public information and new analysis on public information. Anyone can go and count the number of cars in a WalMart parking lot. This is new analysis on public information, not non-public information.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com