insider trading is a stupid crime anyway. they're just using knowledge to make better bets. that's the whole point of markets in the first place. the more insider knowledge is in play, the more accurate the stock price will actually be, the more functional the stock system.

Any legitimate CEO wouldn't even agree with this even though they stand to make the most $ in the short run. If every mark and rube who invested knew that at any time the company he's buying shares of could be manipulated then stock buying would be a gamble. People don't invest in the stock market to "gamble" but think of themselves as investors. Any legalizing of insider trading would ruin the stock market overnight.

stock buying is a gamble and legalizing insider trading would have very little effect on the markets, certainly not the doomsday scenario you predict. they would become slightly more efficient. that's all.

if insider trading is a crime, then who is the victim? "society"? it's nonsense. for a crime to exist you need an injured party and you need a direct causation between the criminal and the injury caused. there are too many stupid laws on the books that at the end of the day just give power to bureaucrats and politicians. the government makes everyone into a criminal so that we can all be ruled over and robbed.



Three guys wind up in jail for anti-trust violations and they compare notes asking each other what they did. The first guy sold his product for too low of a price, so he got charged with predatory pricing. The second guy sold his product for too high of a price, and he got charged with price gouging. Finally, the last guy sold his product at the same price as his competitors. They locked him up for price fixing.

^^^This is among the most absurd posts not only ITT, but anywhere on the Internet.

It's right below Youtube comments but it is close. lol @ no victims because of inside trading.

Hi Martha Stewart. You still mad sis?

please cancel your monthly subscription to the internet.

Martha Stewart is the perfect example of someone who did nothing wrong and should not have gone to jail.

Nothing wrong!?!?!?! She's done a ton wrong.

Here's just one example.

Everyday Food is one of the publications in the Martha Stewart evil empire.

Just watch this video if you're not squeemish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpS4g4gsPVg

Croque Madame my ass! How can you even dare to call it a Croque Madame without any bechemel sauce? You can't!

Sadly, 58k youtube viewers will be eating a grilled cheese with egg instead of a croque madame. I say her punishment wasn't enough.

That reminds me I need to learn how to make hollandaise sauce.

http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/...-mouth-2380672

"[I]t purportedly contains contains dozens of semen-based recipes, including "obvious" ones like Hollandaise sauce flan as well as protein-heavy dishes (now with a little extra protein) like veal scaloppini.

Have at it ....

****ing ******s

The victim is the person who sells their shares to the insider (or buys from in the case of bad news) at at a different price than they would have if they had the benefit of the insider's information.

This may be the most idiotic thing I have ever read and if you can't answer your own questions then I don't know what to tell you buddy

but they were trying to sell their shares anyway. If the insider didn't trade, they would have just sold their shares for the same price to someone else. So how is this seller hurt by the actions of the insider trader? They are clearly not at all affected. You could ague that the person who would have bought the shares is a victim, but this is a very dubious claim, since nobody has a right to a chance windfall and they are clearly not at all hurt they simply missed out on an opportunity and clearly "causing someone to miss out on an opportunity" should not be a legal cause of action or a crime.

1. Short term trading (not long term profit from dividends or general upward trend of share value) is a zero sum game.

2. Insider trading is profitable.

Therefore, whoever trades with the insider takes a loss equal to the insider's gain.

Where do you disagree?

Edit: It might be easier to see if you imagine a scenario in which the insider is a seller rather than a buyer. The insider sells someone shares he knows to be worthless and the next day the company announces that it's folding. Surely you don't have any trouble seeing a victim in this scenario, right?

Edit 2: BTW, I'm not even saying I think insider trading regulations are a good idea. I'm just objecting to the absurd claim that it's "victimless."

As I said in my post that you quoted, I agree that someone loses, specifically the person who was going to be buying the shares that the insider trader bought, but I do not think a crime has been committed. If I open up a business selling pizza, then the pizza guy down the street might lose some business to me, but nobody would suggest I have committed a crime against him.

I also don't see how insider trading laws are beneficial. It's not a huge deal obviously, and there are a ton of other laws which would be more beneficial to repeal, but all these laws do is make the market slightly less efficient. I'd rather share prices more closely reflected the actual value of companies.

also stock trading is a positive sum game. i guess in part it is negative sum also because of fees, but on balance it is still positive sum. people only trade because they expect to benefit, usually (almost invariably) they are right, ergo both people benefit from a trade (which is why they trade). also the companies they are buying are actively creating wealth.

This obv^^^^^

LOOOOOOOOOL

well if you called your pizza shop Domino's with a red and blue logo then yes you would be breaking a law.

Sorry guy, societies need rules (laws) to function, and yes governments need to make and enforce those laws. Do you have a problem with ALL laws, or just insider trading laws?

surely you don't believe that insider trading is victim-less or should not be a crime, so what is your reason for posting all this?

There's nothing fundamentally wrong about insider trading ... just as in poker there is nothing wrong about swapping cards from your hand with cards from the deck.

The second is ok if you are playing draw poker, and the first is ok if you trading a market like commodities where there are no insider trading rules.

When someone swaps their cards with ones from the deck in Holdem, or does insider trading in market where that breaches the rules is cheating and should see legal consequences.

Markets in company stock are always "insider trading not allowed" because nobody would want to be a counterparty to people in the know (commodities are different because a lot of the people trading know something about some producer somewhere or are trading on behalf of a producer and you pretty much wouldn't have a market without these people).

People don't want to trade on the wrong side of an information-assymetric basis. Real estate contract always have a clause about hidden faults known to the vendor, for example.

i honestly dont give a **** about OmahaFanatical4's opinion on insider trading but thought it was necessary to point out that this has to be the worst analogy for insider trading and really exposes his/her level of thinking.

I am in favour of law but I do feel that western societies have begun to devolve, that law has been perverted, as Bastiat said, from a tool for protecting property rights into an instrument of plunder.

I wasn't making an analogy, I was demonstrating how one can cause economic harm in a non criminal fashion.

okay but this is circular logic. It's wrong because it's illegal and it's illegal because it's wrong. But what if it is a case of malum prohibitum but not malum in se