But that's not insider trading. You don't have inside information on that other company. You have a guess that their business is doing similar. When perhaps Twilio is doing so well because they took business from that competitor or something else that makes them stand out.

Interesting, hadn't heard of that one before. With some digging this appears to be the first case where they have ever charged someone for "shadow trading" like this. And it is still making its way through the courts. Definitely will be following that.

This is another situation where I am literally dumbfounded at the actions of the indicted. How are you smart enough to know what options are and how to buy them but stupid enough to think that you won't get caught making such a blatant trade?

It's like these people think they're the first ones to ever come up with the idea of trading on privileged information so there's no way they'll get caught.

It’s literally a running gag on Matt Levite’s newsletter that all the SEC needs to do to keep their enforcement quota up is to search their database for any deep OTM option trades around earnings announcements.

If that’s the case couldn’t anyone just scan for suspicious trades like that and copy the position?

Yes if they have the SEC database of trades?