cryptoanarchy.wiki

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1996-06-03 - Re: Saw this on CNN: Anonymous Stock tips over IRC as bad???

Header Data

From: “Perry E. Metzger” <perry@piermont.com>
To: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
Message Hash: 83b72bff9c2e7cf816f9c63085692fb40bc6c61ab0f32617e41dfdd048ab2d22
Message ID: <199606031632.MAA05439@jekyll.piermont.com>
Reply To: <199606031507.LAA15317@jafar.sware.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-06-03 23:07:12 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 07:07:12 +0800

Raw message

From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 07:07:12 +0800
To: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
Subject: Re: Saw this on CNN: Anonymous Stock tips over IRC as bad???
In-Reply-To: <199606031507.LAA15317@jafar.sware.com>
Message-ID: <199606031632.MAA05439@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Jeff Barber writes:
> IANAL, but I think you must be wrong about this, Perry.

Nope, I'm not.

> If this were the case then, as an employee of company XYZ, I would
> never be permitted to buy XYZ stock (which is clearly not the case)
> since I *always* have information that others outside the company do
> not (about staff changes, product plans and such).

Funny, that, ain't it.

Well, yes, as I noted, the law is very broad, and selectively
enforced. However, yes indeed -- if you know that Secure Ware is
introducing SuperBozo 2000 next week by virtue of your employment, and
you know it will drive up the stock price, and SuperBozo 2000 is a
deep dark secret, and you load up on shares in the expectation of
making money from that rise, you are indeed cruising for a visit from
the friendly boys at Stock Watch.

> I suspect the deciding factor must have to do
> with the ability to execute actions which have substantial direct effects
> on the stock price (i.e. buying a company, declaring dividends, having a
> massive downsizing, etc.).

There is no real deciding factor other than what a jury will buy. The
law is very broad and extremely vague. It is selectively enforced. A
lot of what is and isn't a violation is based entirely on
prosectorial discretion.

Welcome to the world of securities regulation, where you live under a
government of men, not of laws, and SEC edicts, er, no-action letters
are needed before you sneeze because everything you do every day is
probably a crime somehow.

Perry

Thread