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A comment on Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination. Parent comment

Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by volgo on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @01:11AM (#16103991)
The law doesn't care how stupid your plan was. You could plan a theft in the middle of the day stealing $5 and still be a crime

Insider trading is trading with the knowledge of privileged information not available to public investors. If he did it, it's a crime. Doesn't matter if he made $50 million or $5.

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by meritt on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @01:24AM (#16104040)
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&C...

Their CEO has a well-documented six-year history of acquiring and disposing INTC stock. As the CEO, he implicitly always has access to privileged information. How exactly does the SEC determine the legality of a specific trade?

I'm not trying to be flip here, I don't really have an opinion on the matter. It just seems that when the CEO is allowed to apparently buy/sell as they please, and not on a predetermined announced-in-advance plan, you could argue that every single trade was illegal insider trading.

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by crdoconnor on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @04:47AM (#16104834)
When it was the Qwest CEO the legality appears to have been determined by his lack of cooperation with the NSA:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph-nacchio-a...

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by friendzis on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @09:10AM (#16106231)
Another side of the same coin would be that since CEO "implicitly always has access to privileged information", it is up to trader to prove legality of specific trade. Of course this is against innocent unless proven otherwise dogma, but still perfectly valid different side of the coin.

Which I find amusing. This is just one of the many places where legality of an action greatly depends on consensus and established practices, which can change overnight. For example court ruling based on implicitness of access to privileged information would effectively eliminate high ranking officers from trading altogether.

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by URSpider94 on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @03:08AM (#16104410)
Most corporations have special departments in place to “pre-clear” executive trades. He almost certainly has a pre-clearance opinion letter on file authorizing him to proceed.
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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by T2_t2 on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @03:00AM (#16104378)
If he sells shares the day they vest, year after year, the only question then is about volume. Did he sell a larger volume than usual?

That's a VERY different question to a binary "is it insider trading?"

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by URSpider94 on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @03:06AM (#16104405)
Nope, that’s not necessarily true. The test is whether he, or any other actor, gave the order to sell while in possession of material information.

It’s possible to put an advance order in place to sell shares on a plan, which clears the issue because that decision is made in advance.

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by aeorgnoieang on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @10:32AM (#16106842)
> The test is whether he, or any other actor, gave the order to sell while in possession of material information.

Wouldn't that reasonably make any sale, at any time, illegal?

Or, alternately, when would a CEO not possess (non-public) material information?

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by T2_t2 on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @05:55AM (#16105121)
I posted this, but I have no idea how to interpret it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16104426 - the numbers make no sense to me.
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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by pathseeker on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @04:07AM (#16104660)
>It’s possible to put an advance order in place to sell shares on a plan, which clears the issue because that decision is made in advance.

That's what he did, no?

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by josefx on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @04:34AM (#16104777)
He broke his pattern last year by changing the orders in october. At a time intel was already aware of Meltdown and with a puplication date for the vulnerability set in January. Wikipedia states that the issue had been shared with manufacturers in July, a month after he normally issues his orders mentioned by the article.

Edit: The date on the last part is wrong, which doesn't change the fact that he changed his orders in the time between internal and public disclosure of Meltdown. I misread the article, in 2017 he issued his orders in February not June (2015).

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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by sudhirj on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @04:26AM (#16104740)
Only time, not number. The schedule allows for a sale on pre determined days, and on the day in question, after he had the news, he sold every share he legally could - way more than he usually did on the scheduled days.
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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by baddox on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @01:39AM (#16104096)
Insiders are still allowed to trade, they’re just not allowed to trade on the insider knowledge.
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Re:Intel CEO’s Stock Sales May Warrant SEC Examination by tc313 on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @06:21AM (#16105260)
It has to be material inside informtion in order to be considered insider trading. He can argue that the small dip in the stock price after the news was released is evidence that the information was not material.
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