A few war stories about insider trading may be in order.
In a number of Silicon Valley tech companies, I have seen a remarkable pattern. The board books are sent ~OUTT via FedEx (I always STRONGLY advise against emailing board books or draft presentations that execs want to solicit prior comments on before the final board book - for obvious security reasons) several days before the board meetings.
In almost every case where the board book contains some significant positive or negative development, the volume and PPS begin to move the day the board books are received. In a few cases, I've compared the delivery times on the tracking information on each shipment and can match the time of receipt by a specific board member to trading activity that takes place within an hour later by "other" entities. As a trial, I've had CEO's exec assistants vary the date of shipment to certain board members - and sure enough, the trading action can be tied to the receipt times of certain board members.
So, without naming names, there are many board members of great reputation and renown in tech who APPEAR to be leaking information from the board books to one or more third parties who then trade on that information within an hour (or hours) of the time those particular board members receive the board book.
This is nott an isolated incident, I've tested this as a scientific experiment and, while I do nott have absolute proof in the form of emails or other communications from the board members and the various third parties that APPARENTLY receive it and trade on it promptly, I am very confident that these board members are tipping third parties.
This appears to be a fairly pervasive thing in Silicon Valley small/medium tech companies. Many of the board members who seem to be involved in this are VCs and other tech company execs (who also sit on many boards).
There is also a tremendous amount of self-dealing that goes on - a board member inducing a company to acquire one of their portfolio companies that are struggling, a board member politically twisting the CEO and CFO to take some really bad financing that is unneeded from one of his pals, and pervasive leaking of one company's confidential information to a competitor company by a board member who has links to both companies.
It's a dirty, filthy, corrupt world. Even among - especially among - the "name" tech companies that most people would recognize.
