Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Insider Trading on SEC Filings

Edgar insider trading

The essential fact of insider trading is that there is a gap between when the insiders of a company know something and when it becomes public. The chief financial officer will get the draft earnings release, and she will circulate it among the executive team, and they will fine-tune the language, and there will be a delay of hours or days in which they know the earnings but the market doesn’t. Or two companies will start negotiating a merger, and due diligence and negotiations will take weeks before the deal is finalized and announced. And during those delays, various people — executives, ...