JohnG

You ALREADY PAID. If he has problems with his bank that is not YOUR problem. If it was me I would have insisted that he send the watch or I would have initiated a chargeback with Visa. So in my opinion he is doing exactly what he should be doing - shipping merchandise that has already been paid for. It is my opinion that many dealers here are called "great" when they are somewhat substandard. They may be "great" relative to others in their field, but if someone ever comes along and gives what would generally be considered superior service in the United States - a good warranty, competitive pricing, quality control performed by dealer and NOT the customer, a big inventory to allow immediate shipping, and responsive communications (all emails answered in less than 24 hours), THAT dealer is going to clean the clocks of all the others.

I don't think we are getting the full story.

It is my understanding that the Swiss ETA Explorer 1's are excellent reps. It is very likely I will buy one sometime this year. I have bought from Ruby so far. Good luck, JuanG

I am kind of new but I have read a lot about the "cartel" and fixed pricing. But when I was shopping my first purchase - an SSD - Angus's price is IDENTICAL to Josh/Andrew. It looks cheaper at first, but when you add the $90 ETA option so that it is the SSD offered everywhere else, it is the exact same price TO THE DOLLAR. I ended buying from Ruby because though it was $10 more than from Angus or Josh or Andrew, the EMS was only $5 to Spain (instead of $30 from Angus or 45 Fedex from Josh/Andrew - they don't even offer EMS to Spain.) And she offers six months warranty. If Josh or Angus even offer warranty I cannot find it anywhere on their sites - though I understand they are very good about taking care of problems regardless). And Andrew offers 3 months... I researched a TON of sellers. I would love to find one that offers good service, stands behind their product, AND who offers a price significantly lower than the "cartel" but to date I have not. Could it be the watch I was looking for? Perhaps if I were buying a different watch my experience would be different - but I have researched some others that interest me and have found pretty much the same thing. Where is the great below-cartel pricing everyone is talking about??? JuanG

Tag Link - $268 from Andrew.

I NEVER said that equities markets don't predate insider trading laws. I am fine having an exchange of ideas but when people start manipulating and outright lying about what I have said I see no point in continuing.

I also noticed (here in Spain anyway) that there is a trend in TV's to making the frame around the LCD panel high gloss black. Also very annoying. I want the frame as low-key as possible...

You HAVE to talk about the law as well because it creates a framework of expectations, the violation of which gives unfair advantage to one (or certain) players. If a game of poker has rules and everyone reasonably expects that others will respect the rules, violation of the rules in order to accrue winnings to oneself unjustly is stealing. Theft may be achieved by a physical act or by deception, trickery or simple disregard of commonly accepted rules - such as in the poker game. Thus, if there were no rule against insider trading then I would not classify it as stealing. I might still have a problem with it for policy reasons (transparency and fairness increases market participation and as a result liquidity and it lowers the cost of capital to companies whose stocks are traded on regulated exchanges) but at least all investors would have knowledge that others may be privy to information that they don't have access to and thus they could make informed decisions about participation in the market. You cannot realistically take the law out of the discussion because it is a key part of the context.

No this is not a good analogy and buying up the Porsches is not immoral because there is not established regulatory framework that creates an expectation of fairness in other buyer of Porsches. Going to dinerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. For real now.

WTF??? This is not about rich vs. poor. If anything it is about honest rich vs. dishonest rich. Not too many people that could be called "disadvantaged" are trading stocks, honestly or otherwise. Any other red herrings?

Subzero your paper is full of distortions and inaccuracies. Just one example and then I am eating dinner. The author is speaking of a transaction in which the buyer has insider information. But he conveniently ignores the most fundamental element of modern economic theory: supply and demand. If a buyer buys BECAUSE he has insider information, he has inflated the price that others will pay and thus reduce their profit - converting it into his own. Additionally, the seller has no opportunity put a higher price on his sell order because he does not have access AT ALL to the information. Value is unjustly transferred from seller to buyer. The author justifies this by saying that the seller does not know the buyer. WHAT RELEVANCE DOES THAT HAVE? That I don't know the man who broke into my home and stole does not change the fact that he stole from me. That he stole twenty dollars off my dresser and I never missed it DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT HE STOLE FROM ME. This paper is a very sloppy hack job. The author quotes Aquinas's Summa Theologica which is a very old text on Jurisprudence that is of mere academic interest today and (of course) was written long before the creation of regulated stock markets. This author is very selective in his citations and the GIANT glaring error is that he ignores altogether the actual state of the law in the United States AND the reasons these laws were enacted... I could go on ad nauseum but you have made up you mind so what's the point. You will do just as McGee does and choose only those sources that support your ideas - basically other authors who share the same ideas without any actual LAW. Good luck to you and be sure to show the SEC this paper when you get busted. I am sure it will win them over.

At least not at the same price. They would sell them at a price closer to the price at close on Monday after the market had assimilated the new information. I ignored the other victim here - the seller. As Pugwash states, if you do not share your improperly acquired and not generally available information with the seller you are stealing from him as well. The market is structured so that all players should (in the absence of misconduct) have access to the same information. That does not mean they actually have the information, but that they can get it if they so desire. The market does not require that participants be well informed, only that they have equal access to all relevant information. If you sell a car and hide a defect to deceive another and cause him to pay a higher price, you have stolen from him. That is precisely what trading on insider information is.

Read my post above. If you still don't get it then buy a rudimentary textbook on financial markets. I am not going to keep explaining it. Or, alternatively, you could assume just for a moment that you are not better informed and educated on the subject than all of the minds at the SEC and other Federal regulatory agencies that oversee market activity in some way and all of the legislators who enacted the laws that created these agencies in oder to keep our markets honest and transparent. If you need some sort of rationalization find it yourself (or just keep believing whatever you want to believe) - but don't expect me to help you.

Yes if you trade on that information. If you are told the information and you already had placed a buy order, or intended to, and you do not alter your trading behaviour based on that information, that is not insider trading. No because the people who waited had exactly the same chance to buy at opening bell on Monday. They were not at a disadvantage - they were lazy or slow or slept late or hesitated or forgot. No. They were using the same information that was available to the public at large. Ok, I challenge you to go to a serious poker game, cheat, and when you get caught tell the other guys, "Yeah I was cheating but I was not stealing from you!" It is stealing. This is not some semantic debate nor is there any argument about this question within the finance world. Anyone who understand market dynamics at the most basic level knows (unless he is delusional) that making money by trading on insider information necessarily comes at the expense of the investor who trades only on information available to the public. You are taking money out of honest investors' pockets. The money does not materialize out of nowhere and it is not a vicitmless crime. That is why it is a felony crime under Federal law and why the SEC pursues cases vigorously.

I will try to explain again. It is stealing because when I buy using insider information I am not just making an extra profit - it is not "free" money that comes from nowhere. I enter the market to purchase stocks that I would otherwise not have bought. I increase demand for that stock - by my one transaction. It is probably a small increase - minuscule - perhaps not even measurable - but I increase demand for that stock nevertheless. That means that the price goes UP. On Monday morning when everyone jumps to buy on the new information, the stock opens at a higher price because of my transaction. The price is also higher for the person who buys after me on Friday afternoon without knowledge of the transaction - and reduces the windfall he should have realized when the information is released on Monday. As a result, profits that should have incurred to other investors are sitting in my pocket. They will make a little less money when they sell because, unbeknown to them, they paid a higher price than they should have when they purchased. If my transaction is small the effect is small. When the leak of information is significant there are measurable effects on the stock price before the announcement and in fact this occurs frequently. It is very common for share prices to move irregularly right before important announcements. Mil_sub is correct that proving a transaction was illegal is very difficult. But just because you can get away with something is not a moral defense. One of the true measures of a man is how he conducts himself when he knows that others are not watching him. Mil_sub appears to be one of those people who will not tell the cashier when they have received too much change back on their purchase. Or perhaps he does - because the harm to that cashier when her register doesn't balance is easier to perceive and the crime harder to rationalize. But make no mistake about it, insider trading is not merely "technically" wrong - it is a moral wrong against fellow market participants. It is theft.

Amen brother. Insider trading is a serious crime. And it is not, as some believe, a victimless crime - all people who drive up market share prices when they trade on information not generally available to the public are taking money directly out of the pockets of other investors. If I buy 10,000 shares today at $1 instead of at $4 immediately after an important announcement, the windfall savings of $30,000 does not just come out of thin air - it is not "free" money. It comes out of the pockets of those who had to buy at a slightly higher price due to my premature intervention. It is irrelevant that this sum is spread over tens or even hundreds of thousands of buyers. If I steal a penny from one million people, it is still stealing.

In interviews he comes off as an arrogant self-righteous [censored]. I am an atheist so I have no ax to grind with his ideas. But his personality is a huge turn off (for me anyway).

Well I know ONE person who would agree with you: Richard Dawkins.

Noam Chomsky. Period.

I know it has already been said, but the decline of the dollar has been very dramatic over the past five years. I am an American living in Spain and I have gotten HAMMERED. Don't many (or some) of the members of these forums (I am including RWG1, RWI and RG) go to China themselves? Wouldn't it be obvious if the "cartel" dealers were really ripping off their customers? Additionally I am about to order a watch from Ruby. She offers 6 mo. warranty and will replace any watch seized by customs. I ask myself if the factories guarantee the watches to the dealers or if there is a problem she has to eat the cost? If so, combined with eating the customs seizures, the cost we pay could be thought to include "insurance" against these risks... I find the prices reasonable but haven't been around long so I don't have bittersweet memories of another pricing structure... JohnG

There's already a rep available on Perfect Clones for $118. It is pretty nice and I can't see any obvious flaws...