What constitutes illegal insider trading?
"It becomes illegal when it is both material and nonpublic information. Material being defined as: Information that you would want and significantly alters the perception of the stock. To your point -- ""materiality"" is really up to the courts Nonpublic This is a little easier to define, but need to be careful if the information is disclosed selectively -- ie to just a small number of investment analysts -- this may still be nonpublic There is also an exception to this -- Mosaic Theory - This is the research you are referring to where the analyst calls up suppliers, etc and obtains information that is nonmaterial (wouldn't move the price of the security) but using experience and combined with public information creates something that is meaningful and could move the price of the security.  This is perfectly legal.  Material examples:" "You have to read some appeals court cases see scholar.google.com , as well as SEC enforcement actions on sec.gov to get an understanding of how the SEC operates. http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/insidertrading/cases.shtml There are court created guidelines for how insider trading would be proven There is no clear line, but it is the ""emergency asset injunctions"" (freezing your assets if you nailed a suspiciously lucrative trade) you really want to avoid, and this is often times enforced/reported by the brokers themselves since the SEC does not have the resources to monitor every account's trading activities. There are some thin lines, such as having your lawyer file a lawsuit, and as soon as it is filed it is technically public so you short the recipient's stock. Or having someone in a court room updating you on case developments as soon as possible so you can make trades (although this may just be actually public, depending on the court). But the rules create the opportunities Also consider that the United States is the most strict country in this regard, there are tons of capital markets and the ideals or views of ""illegal insider trading"" compared to ""having reached a level of society where you are privileged to obtain this information"" vary across the board contains charts of countries where an existing insider trading prohibition is actually enforced: http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=articles https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~charvey/Teaching/BA453_2005/BD_The_world.pdf Finally, consider some markets that don't include equities, as trading on an information advantage is only applicable to things the SEC regulates, and there are plenty of things that agency doesn't regulate. So trying to reverse engineer the SEC may not be the most optimal use of energy"
In this case, she had claimed that remaining in Bosnia would result in persecution from Serbs because her husband had hidden in Serbia rather than join the Bosnian Serb Army; in fact, he had served in the Bosnia Serb Army.  But the point here is that this was a lie made during the *immigration* process, not the *naturalization* process. During the naturalization process, she claimed that she had never given false information to a government official during immigration proceedings. Of course, this was *also* a lie, and hence a crime under 18 U. S. C. §1015.  But now there’s a question: Does having lied about lying constitute procuring naturalization “contrary to law”?  The Supreme Court says “not on its own.” Specifically,  &gt;[18 U. S. C. §1425(a)], most naturally read, strips a person of citizenship not when she committed any illegal act during the naturalization process, but only when that act played some role in her naturalization.  &gt; ...  &gt;When the underlying illegality alleged in a §1425(a) prosecution is a false statement to government officials, a jury must decide whether the false statement so altered the naturalization process as to have influenced an award of citizenship.   Now, it’s entirely possible that the lie in this case meets that requirement. The Court’s decision, however, is based on the fact that the Jury did not make such a determination. Rather, they were instructed that *any* lie would be grounds for a guilty verdict. Hence, the Court determined that  &gt;Maslenjak was not convicted by a properly instructed jury of “procur[ing], contrary to law, [her] naturalization.” "Here is one ""other consideration"": don't, don't, don't sell based on insider information. Insider trading can land you in jail. And it's not restricted to top executives. Even overhearing a discussion about the current status of the acquisition talks can mean that you have insider information that you legally cannot act on in many jurisdictions. If you are just a regular employee, the SEC will likely not subject your dealings to special scrutiny, especially since lots of your colleagues will likely trade your company's shares at this point in time. And if you definitely hold insider info (for example, if you are intimately involved with the acquisition talks), you will likely have had a very serious warning about insider trading and know what you can and what you cannot do. Nevertheless, it's better to be careful here." I've yet to meet an illegal making a shit wage. So yeah not rally. People don't want to do construction because it's brutal work and working for apple as a programmer pays 3x to be inside and not in 110 degree heat. Then I'll cite it as the last paragraph of step 3 in getting started. He says everything is insider trading and that's bullshit; if he had any interest in giving real advice he would define insider trading as trading with material, non-public information as it says in all the statutes.  It's the same meaningless nonsense as the paragraph before that, where he says good investors don't time the market but know when to get in and get out. Those are the same things at the level he has described them; it would take a book with actual investing advice like Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor or A Random Walk Down Wall Street for an actual view into investment. "One scenario described in the original question -- a non-insider who trades after informal conversations with friends, where no insiders directly benefit from any such disclosure -- might not be illegal.  (IANAL -- this is just my personal interpretation of articles in the news recently.) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-05/insider-trading-cases-imperiled-as-top-u-s-court-spurns-appeal the appeals court said prosecutors needed to show that the person disclosing the information received a clear benefit -- something more than the nurturing of a friendship ... In a 1980 case the Supreme Court rejected the idea of “a general duty between all participants in market transactions to forgo actions based on material, nonpublic information.""" &gt;The scariest part of this single program was that its millions of quotes accounted for 10 percent of the bandwidth that is allowed for trading on any given day, according to Nanex.  Am I jumping to conclusions? if this was done at a scale ten times larger wouldn't that stop everyone trading for that day? How do you locate who's doing it? Can we stop it or just hope they don't power trip? Wouldn't it be obvious who made money off it if they do decide to use it for that reason?   Lots of questions because I'm a noob. And then they got caught for inside trading because the CEO was getting inside information, but now they are private and I think he offers at least 30% now. Don't believe me, Idc. SAC capital is right down the street from where I work and I know the personal secretary for the CEO of SAC capital. "Here is one ""other consideration"": don't, don't, don't sell based on insider information. Insider trading can land you in jail. And it's not restricted to top executives. Even overhearing a discussion about the current status of the acquisition talks can mean that you have insider information that you legally cannot act on in many jurisdictions. If you are just a regular employee, the SEC will likely not subject your dealings to special scrutiny, especially since lots of your colleagues will likely trade your company's shares at this point in time. And if you definitely hold insider info (for example, if you are intimately involved with the acquisition talks), you will likely have had a very serious warning about insider trading and know what you can and what you cannot do. Nevertheless, it's better to be careful here."