Only if the information is acquired from an insider. If you develop exclusive information without relying on internal sources, it's not insider trading. But tha

Only if the information is acquired from an insider. If you develop exclusive information without relying on internal sources, it's not insider trading. But that is very hard to do. I'm convinced that some amount of insider trading is going on. Just the other day I was in a sauna at a gym in midtown and walked in on some bankers discussing a deal they were working on and literally whether they ought to illegal trade on their insider knowledge. They kept on talking about it for a time while I was with them, and then said of me, "Better hope this guy's not from the SEC!" It was pretty blatant. Now these kids were idiots, so maybe they wouldn't even be able to make a profit with insider knowledge. But if they're talking about it, I'm sure non-zero numbers of people are doing it.