> Remember the Matt Levine test: insider trading is about theft, not fairness. While appreciating the usefulness of this quote, one should also understand that

> Remember the Matt Levine test: insider trading is about theft, not fairness. While appreciating the usefulness of this quote, one should also understand that usefulness is limited by the actual enforcement of insider trading laws and insider trading doctrine generally, which does not square with the analogy. There is certainly an element of "fairness" that is being protected implicitly and/or explicitly in enforcement actions, with the purported interest of keeping the markets attractive to retail investors. On the other hand, "fairness" is undermined in cases like Enron where prohibitions on insider trading likely artificially reduced downward pressure on the price of the stock (costing investors who bought later larger losses) by disallowing folks who understood what was going on from selling the stock.