Insider Information

finance a la shmoop. what is regulation full disclosure or in industry parlance

reg FD ?all those whispery hallways of the 1970s and 80s

insiders muckety-mucks cheaters Liars deceivers key employees on the take [men in suits discuss stocks]

sound like the dramatic cover for a Hollywood movie and while it was and it

was real life as well. the practice of gleaning information

essentially unavailable to the average investor was a large part of the

practice of quote doing research unquote for all too many of the professional by

side investment firms of the era. the regulator's finally noticed and began to

crack down with only modest success for a while when finally reg FD was enacted

via the SEC in 2000. well that regulation massively prohibited the type of

discussions that could legally happen among analysts and company insiders. in

fact disclosure of much more than much more than the company name mailing

address and the product they sold was prohibited unless it was done in a

broadly available and well-publicized public forum that John Q public could [woman gives presentation]

participate in. the goal here was to take away free money or profits or gains from

insiders leaking information you know so that investors could make bets with way

more information on whether or not the roulette wheel of the company's

quarterly performance in earnings was going to in fact land on red twenty

three. so yeah that's what reg FD is about. trust us we've fully disclosed

everything we know about it and we're going modern here. modern era people come

on get with it. [man folds arms inside casino]