Insider Trading And Stock Market

Fraud, lying, conspiracy...not terms that any individual generally wants associated with their history, nonetheless with their reputation and personality, especially if that individual happens to be Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart: a name which almost every person who calls themselves an American can recognize. Her name pronounces itself across cookbooks, magazines and even has its own show on Style and The Learning Channel. It now pronounces itself with yet another captivating theme, as part of one of America's major scandals.

Overview of the Case: The Securities and Exchange Commission claims Mark D. Begelman misused proprietary information regarding the merger of Bluegreen Corporation with BFC Financial Corporation. Mr. Begelman allegedly learned of the acquisition through a network of professional connections known as the World Presidents’ Organization (Maglich). Members of this organization freely share non-public business information with other members in confidence; however, Mr. Begelman allegedly did not abide by the organization’s mandate of secrecy and leveraged private information into a lucrative security transaction. As stated in the summary of the case by the SEC, “Mark D. Begelman, a member of the World Presidents’ Organization (“WPO”), abused

In this paper the main focus will be on the clause of 'Liability to contemporaneous traders for insider trading' which is section 20A in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The paper will start off by giving some basic points that make up this section followed by the history and background of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The paper will then highlight the major impact that this act has made on the industry in the current global standing. Some of the basic points that make up the subsection 20A clauses include the following:

Prior to the financial crisis, the overall responsibility for financial oversight was divided among several different agencies. These agencies and their “varying rules and standards led to certain entities not being regulated at all, with others subject to less oversight than their peer

Insider trading – insider trading is the trading of a corporation’s stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the

The argument that I am making should be addressed to Baconivic and the people that agree with his business ethics. Instead of having a Carr mindset, I have more of a Drucker mindset. With my Drucker mindset, I would address Baconivic and these people about how spreading insider information to only a select few is against the law and how it could ruin their image as people in the working field. No matter whether you are a senior broker or assistant, ruining your image in the working field does no good to anyone. All their hard work up to that point will diminish and trying to gain back a good reputation will be difficult. As many parents tell their children, Baconivic and his supporters should put themselves in the shoes of other shareholders that will fairly lose money from their investments in the ImClone company. By doing so, they will be able to mentally see and feel the loss that happens through stocks. Instead of trying to give certain people unfair advantages, higher authoritative positions in companies should be more ethical and try to give reassurance that the stocks will raise

Insider trading has brought competition to the market place by giving shareholders, private investors, and other interested individuals the opportunity to bring in revenue. The average American household lives paycheck to paycheck. The stock market opens a new world for those individuals that are wanting to own electronic currency or a tangible good. This can also create another source of income for them as well “…the long-term investors who hold their stock will share in the price rise that good news will bring, and their holdings will be worth a greater amount in the market” (Henry B. Manne, Insider Trading and Stock Market (1966) p.457). Another benefit that insider trading bring, is it that creates new competition in the market for companies to strive more on making their product worth more. Therefore, their stock will be worth more as the company continues to rise above the

In the previous discussion, I indicated that the Section 16(b) rule of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 was intended “to protect the interests of the public against the predatory operations of directors, officers, and principal stockholders of corporations by preventing them from speculating in the stock of the corporations to which they owe a fiduciary duty".

The stock market is the market where shares of publicly owned companies are issued through exchanges or over-the-counter markets. Some individuals, such as R. Foster Winans, will attempt to cheat the stock market and make profits illegally through insider trading. Insider trading is an illegal activity where people will trade stocks based on confidential information. R. Foster Winans was charged with insider trading because of his knowledge of what would appear in the Wall Street Journal’s, “Heard on the Street Column.” R. Foster Winans got the punishment he deserved for insider trading on the stock market.

Insider dealing has been affecting the efficiency of stock markets in different places like United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Hong Kong is of no exception. Basically, insider dealing refers to the trading of a corporation’s stock or other securities by individual with potential access to non-public information of the company. The law of insider dealing in Hong Kong provides a much more detailed definition and is very comprehensive. However, when it comes to enforcement, it seems not very effective. In the following, the law of insider dealing in Hong Kong will be summarized. After analyzing the comprehensiveness of the law, the underlying reasons of the difficulty in enforcement will be identified. Some

Gain did engage in inside trading because he made family members buy securities which made the price of the share to increase when his company Forest Media was trying to acquire RS Communication. In this case civil sanctions would come against Gain and family members who purchased the shares. Gain could be found liable by the court with a Scienter requirement because he tried to tip the scale for the acquisition of RS Communication by Forest Media.

For example, Manna (1966) states that insider trading should be allowed because insider trading is the most effective way to compensate to insider to generate new economic information in firm. Hirshleifer() states that for insider, good information is as good as bad information to make profit but this profit may not be related to economic contribution of insiders in corporate. Proponents of insider trading suggest (Carlton and Fischel (1983) that insiders are the most informative member in the market, and by trading, they bring new information to the markets and causing prices to change toward their true value and, therefore, promoting the optimal allocation of resources. On the other hand, Scholars (Benabou and Laroqu, 1992) say that insider trading may provide incentive to corporate insiders either to delay the announcement of price-sensitive information to public or to prevent to release price sensitive information, which in turn makes stock prices less informative. However, Georgakopoulos (1993) argues that restriction on insider trading may have little adverse impact on market efficiency but it reduces the cost of transaction that burdens on uninformed traders

Corporate directors and officers often obtain advance inside information because of their positions. Sometimes the information can affect the future market value of the corporate stock. It is obvious that their positions can give them a trading advantage over the general public and shareholders. Often times the insider is the company manager; other times it is the company's lawyer, investment banker, or even the printer of the company's financial statement. Anyone who has knowledge before public dissemination of that information stands to benefit from good news or bad news.

Insider trading refers to the trading of a listed company’s stock or other financial securities by individuals who has access to non-public material information about the company. This action often occurs within employees/ex-employees of the listen company. Information is considered to be non-public material information if making it public would affect the price of securities, and using such information in decisions to buy or sell financial securities would be unfair to non-insiders (Bainbridge, 2013). Insider trading is treated as a mischief in more than 90 countries, and defendants are imposed with penalties (Beny, 2012). Specific insider conduct regulations in New Zealand were first enacted in 1988, followed by amendments in 2002, 2006 and 2008. The insider conduct regimes between 1988 and 2008 are often considered as a failure due to weak enforcements. Thus in 2008, the regulator introduced a new regime, which was a close model to the Australian insider conduct legislation. Both regimes are expansive, meaning it could be applied to any person in possession of insider information. However, while the Australian laws were aggressively enforced (more than 26 prosecutions were brought since then), no prosecutions have been launched under the new legislation in New Zealand. In addition, New Zealand also had no convictions secured prior to 2008, illustrating a clear enforcement deficit in the New Zealand

FI’s with large shareholdings are better apt at influencing the performance of investee firms in their portfolios by being a quasi insider and creating knowledge advantage using private information gained through regular meetings (Holland, 1999). Through cooperative means FI’s are able to probe, monitor and direct the corporate strategies, management and financial performance without direct intervention. Private and informal influencing is favored to public interventions as it may affect reputation of all parties involved.