The messed up part is that it's not even technically insider trading as long as they release the same information publicly shortly after... so they're not actually breaking any laws. So much of the way the US government has operated is based on some shared standard of moral sense that the current administration lacks completely.
> it's not even technically insider trading as long as they release the same information publicly shortly after... so they're not actually breaking any laws
No, that’s a canonical example of insider trading: acting on pre-release inside information before it’s made public; it doesn’t matter if it’s days, hours, or even minutes before it goes public.
People have been convicted for executing trades when they saw or handled earnings reports in-person hours before they’re released[1].
Insider trading requires breach of duty, if you don't have fiduciary duty with who you're trading against it's not insider trading. The required chain in the link is someone inside a contractual agreement providing information.
It's right in your own link, the filing-agent employee was convicted because he stole information he was contractually obligated to protect. Remove that obligation and there's no case. Truth Social owns the posts and is selling them with the source's blessing, nobody's stealing anything.
As much as I hate to say it, what they're doing with Truth social is very likely legal. The president does not have any contractual financial obligation to these companies, if he posts "everyone sell Intel, I'm going to regulate out of existence" to a group of people who paid him for this post early... there's no breach of contract anywhere.
That is absolutely not true. Your brother in law gives you insider information and you use it, you go to prison. You have no fiduciary duty, but you still had insider information. I have seen this happen in real life.
it is true, look it up — the brother in law works because there's breach of duty in the chain ... in the truth social case there's no breach of duty if the president is the one shifting the market without a direct link in the chain.
Companies aren't saying "hey we want you to manipulate the market for us" — the president is just outright manipulating it, telling people he knows ahead of time, and reaping the profits that way. There's no fiduciary duty involved at all, so it won't be considered insider trading... you don't even have to believe me, this is literally how it's playing out...
This situation is completely untested by the courts.
“The chain” and “fiduciary duty”, which I feel you’re putting too much weight on, are not really relevant, IMO, because (and to my surprise, I’ll admit, “insider trading” is still not really defined in law:
the chain leading back to fiduciary duty is a pretty reliable signal, despite not being codified
> But in any event; the sitting US president certainly has a “fiduciary duty” and responsibility to all Americans; whatever he’s doing now is not that.
it's debatable which is why there's no mechanism allowing courts to shut it down immediately, a big part of the issue is that the information is also released to the public and the short window of time between privileged and public access hasn't been tested this way before
> section 10(b), and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, each executive branch
employee, each judicial officer, and each judicial employee owes
a duty arising from a relationship of trust and confidence to
the United States Government and the citizens of the United
States with respect to material, nonpublic information derived
from such person's position as an executive branch employee,
judicial officer, or judicial employee or gained from the
performance of such person's official responsibilities
the crux will lie here, the information is made public, and access is only restricted temporarily (possibly seconds)... this may be enough to circumvent the law as written
