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by labrador 876 days ago
I love answers like this because it clears up confusion in few words and makes the answer obvious in retrospect
2 comments

It’s often a dangerous kind of answer.

I once saw somebody say something to the effect that in every Hacker News thread, there is always a highly upvoted comment that sounds completely plausible, well argued, made by somebody who appears highly qualified to answer, and that is completely incorrect.

I don’t think it’s always true, but it often is.

Unfortunately in this case the answer as written is completely wrong. See the top reply.

> If you do not have a fiduciary relationship with Boeing and you have no confidentiality obligations with respect to the information, you are not trading on inside information.

Specifically this part. One of the first things you learn when doing mandatory insider trading training is you can easily run afoul of the law if you act on non-public info you overheard, or happened to see by accident, even if it has to do with some company with which you are not affiliated. A common example is you’re in a coffee shop and see an upcoming earnings report on someone else’s laptop screen, then trade based on that information.

The top reply currently for me is colinmorelli who says:

> in this particular case is no, it's not insider trading

You seem to be saying it could be, but that wouldn't mean the answer was "completely wrong" (your words)

The reasoning is totally wrong and while “no” is likely correct it’s more of a stopped clock sort of situation