From the article, it seems the information was flowing _from_ the reporter:

> The feds allege that Peltz used disposable “burner” phones and encrypted apps to communicate with a journalist, and that the reporter provided “material nonpublic information about forthcoming articles” which Peltz used to trade in the market “just prior to publication of an article about each company written by the reporter.”

News like this loses its value unless it is published immediately, so I would think the leaker is effectively in control of when it is published.

Trying to wrap my head around what you are trying to say. Let's use some example. If you would know that Tesla's delivery numbers were a disaster (they weren't). Knowing that before everybody else would give you a chance to sell at a significantly better price than others.

Yes, but if you know exactly when everyone else find out you can time your trade more easily.

Could an insider trader get information, not act on it, write an article about his scoop, and then make trades after the article's published? If the publication he writes on is obscure and not followed, is the information still considered public?

Sure, but that doesn't mean it "loses its value unless it is published immediately".

Basically, the info has a certain amount of value, that doesn't really go down. If you pair that information with the knowledge of when it will be published, it goes up in value.

> Basically, the info has a certain amount of value, that doesn't really go down.

I was thinking of the value of the news to Bloomberg, which was mentioned in the article:

At Bloomberg, scoops about deals are highly valued, because beating competitors like Reuters or Dow Jones helps to justify the high price of a terminal, which carries rich veins of data along with news, at a reported cost of around $24,000 a year. The terminals constitute the company’s core business.

If the information is deemed important, then, as soon as Bloomberg is confident in the information's accuracy, it will publish. Once Peltz had a record of giving reliable tips, that would likely happen quickly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_%28news%29

Thanks, that makes sense.

I think it depends how this information will be distributed. If it will be syndicated, then you will know the limit already.

I am not taking a position here on the proposition that Peltz needed to know when the information would be published in order to profit. I am pointing out that, even without being explicitly told by the journalist, he could be reasonably sure that publication would occur quickly, if at all. He could also be reasonably confident that it would be published, given that it is valuable information, and that Bloomberg had demonstrated its confidence in his leaks by publising earlier ones.

The feds may well, of course, have independent non-circumstantial evidence of the journalist informing Peltz about when the information would be published.

It looks like both were involved in trading inside information, one for market operations and the other for articles. If the journalist had a deal (which I can only suspect to be the case), he was facilitating the crime of insider trading.

The journalist has not been charged with anything.

And this actually brings up a fascinating point: is it a crime for a journalist to tell a third party when the journalist will publish a story, if both believe the story will affect the markets?

The journalist isn't telling the third party what the information is -- after all, in this case it seems like it was the third party who supplied it.

And the journalist isn't profiting financially either. They're just getting their story, not a share of profits.

I'm not aware that courts have determined that this is facilitating insider trading. And like I said, the journalist hasn't been charged with anything. But I'm not an expert.

Are you sure this would be a crime?

Journalists often have embargoes on their articles. A company may want to announce a new product, will tell a few newspapers but ask them to wait before publishing.

Sure, but violating those embargoes is not a crime. It might (but isn't likely to) violate some contract between the company and the newspaper - which is also not a crime, but may open up the possibility for a civil claim; it might cause the newspaper to stop receiving future releases; it might result in the journalist getting fired, but nothing about violating such embargoes would be criminally prosecutable by the state.

Sorry my point was that it wasn't a crime.

The journalist didn't need a deal. His prestige increased because he was publishing scoops.

There's no way they caught this person in a few months time, with all the precautions he took. Someone ratted this guy out. Would love to know why the feds don't pursue the big market manipulators, instead trying to make headlines with small fish. Probably can't make anything stick, because they are less than competent and less than fully manned. The rat needs to be exposed.

Often times people who take a lot of precautions still make one mistake. cf. Ulbricht, Ross.

It is important to punish whistleblowers, because it makes cheating safer. If people are afraid to report it is easier to cheat and not get caught.

Because there's a resolving door between federal lawyers, politicians, and very lucrative private law jobs.

Power is political.

This has been discussed below. The reporter was giving Peltz non-public information about the stories he was going to publish, which allowed Peltz to better time his trades. The information flow was two-way.