[kgwgk]

I imagine that if the story has been published at 9:31 the purchase at 9:37 wouldn’t have happened and some other transaction would have been his last purchase. He may or may not have been aware of when the news would be published.

[throwaway789256]

That is logically plausible. An insider purchase that occurs minutes ahead of a market-moving event is merely circumstantial evidence, but it is very strong circumstantial evidence.

One thing to note is that Peltz bought options as well as stock. Options suffer time decay. That is, all other things being equal, their value decreases with the passage of time. The better you can time your purchase to immediately precede a market-moving event, the less time decay matters.

In addition, Peltz and his associates started selling their positions within a minute of the scoops being published. Do you think they just happened to be looking at their trading screens during that minute of the day? I don't think they would have left that to chance.

(Edit in response to the comment below: Bloomberg scoops do not appear on the open Internet for at least 15 to 20 minutes after their publication on Bloomberg terminals. So RSS wouldn't explain trades within a minute of publication. If Peltz and his friends were Bloomberg terminal subscribers, they could have set up some kind of alert there, sure. But still, not something you want to leave to chance... Even if you have your phone with you at all times, you're not always able to respond to the alerts that come up.)

[boomboomsubban]

>Do you think they just happened to be looking at their trading screens during that minute of the day?

Or they set up something like an RSS feed and had their phones ring when a keyword was mentioned. Knowing the story is coming is enough to make sure you're prepared.

Even if you did have advanced knowledge of when it was supposed to publish you would do this, so they can't betray you or nothing like a time zone mistake can ruin everything.

[boomboomsubban]

>Even if you have your phone with you at all times, you're not always able to respond to the alerts that come up.

So you hire someone who is always able to respond. Both parts that yous claim are convincing circumstantial evidence just seem like expected behavior that could be entirely scripted. "Buy all x below y, after z happens sell all x" would lead to both things happening.