Gotta love unregulated markets indeed! Insider trading makes markets more efficient by moving the market price closer to the postdisclosure price. That is good;

Gotta love unregulated markets indeed! Insider trading makes markets more efficient by moving the market price closer to the postdisclosure price. That is good; contrary to Chesterton's fence, most market regulations with plausible-sounding reasoning justifying them do not have a good reason to exist as they outrun mainstream understanding of economics—which should not be confused with the opinions of regulators or even polls of professional economists. From the article on insider trading in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: > Who benefits from regulation of insider trading? One group of beneficiaries is market professionals—broker-dealers, securities analysts, floor traders, arbitrageurs, and institutional investors. The reason is that they are “next in line” for trading profits, as they possess an advantage over public investors in collecting and analyzing information (Haddock and Macey 1987). Regulation also, of course, benefits the regulators—that is, the SEC—by giving that agency greater power, prestige, and budget (Bainbridge 2002). However, the benefits from insider trading laws to small shareholders, the alleged primary beneficiaries, have been extensively debated. From www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2015/Hooperharmed.html: > Insider trading laws are yet another example of government's desire to capture and exercise political, regulatory and legal power, gain huge monetary awards, and garner favorable PR, all for the sake of prosecuting victimless "crimes" and promoting misplaced notions of fairness. Insider trading should be embraced for its beneficial effects on market efficiency and left as a private matter for those companies interested in preventing it. Consequently, the SEC should not have a leading role in insider-trading cases, especially if the purpose is to benefit one group of insiders at the expense of another.