> It is a type of fraud because the insider is selling you a stock at a price they know is wrong (or buying it from you). They are hiding from you information t

> It is a type of fraud because the insider is selling you a stock at a price they know is wrong (or buying it from you). They are hiding from you information that they know would affect your decision to trade So it would also be fraud if I sold a stock because I happened to overhear the executives of a company in a restaurant discussing some Very Bad thing that was about to happen to the company? In reality this simply isn’t fraud. The stock is just worth different amounts to different people with different knowledge. > Further, imagine that I as a CEO (or more realistically, executive team) buy a short contract on my own company's shares (through intermediaries, so people don't find out I did it), and then intentionally tank the company to force the stock price to go down at a later date. Wouldn't this be extremely similar to insurance fraud This is obviously illegal regardless of the existence of “insider trading”.