[quarterdime]

From my understanding, the SEC does not share award recipients' identities. That said, every time I see news of an award I wonder if it's gone to an insider or short seller.

The insiders are sort of obvious. But the short sellers... From what I understand, the game goes like this: sniff for signs of fraud in publicly traded companies (I forget who, but one famous short seller jokes that he looks for CEOs with hairpieces). Find evidence of fraud. Often this requires forensic accountants analyzing publicly available financial data. Submit evidence of fraud to the SEC. AND short the stock, go public with the evidence of fraud while disclosing your short position. If you're right, you can hit two paydays: the SEC whistleblower award AND the proceeds from the short sale.

I have zero experience with any of this. I am just recalling (as well as I can) a rabbit-hole I went down over a year ago.

[sgjohnson]

Would be pretty dumb to actually open a short position. Put options would have far less downside, and a lot more upside.

[RandomBK]

You may need to be careful, as it's possible communicating with the SEC might cause you to be privy to material non-public information.

For example if you know there's a SEC investigation into the company because you're cooperating with their questions, that might bar you from certain market transactions.