[kasey_junk]

The difference is that one is illegal and unethical and the other isn't. There is no promise in the markets that everyone will have all relevant information at the same time and at the same quality. Why should that promise exist? If I spend my time and energy doing more research than you, why should you get the same advantage?

What we do have is a promise (cynical folks might say promise is too strong here) that if you are my broker, you can't use my non published order desires to take market positions.

We also have a promise that certain covered individuals working for a publicly traded company, cannot release certain material pieces of information about that traded company to anyone early, nor can they trade on that information before it is released.

The problem is not private knowledge, there is tons of that in the market, and that is what makes people take different market positions, thus enabling the market to exist. What is problematic is for people to take advantage of information that no one else could conceivably get.

[foobarqux]

> There is no promise in the markets that everyone will have all relevant information at the same time and at the same quality.

There may be no such promise but it is not clear on its face that such a promise should never exist, for example, to maintain liquid and orderly markets.

Is there any situation where it would be desirable?

If only 10 entities could buy real time stock quotes from the exchanges and everyone else had a 5 minute delay, wouldn't that be undesirable?

And what about government interest rate decisions? Should some entities be allowed to get early access?

[tptacek]

This comment is running off on a tangent but I think it's important to understand that Kasey is right here, and front-running orders requires knowledge of the victim's specific trading intent. You aren't "front-running" simply because you're smarter than some other market actor.