Yes.
Doesn’t the reality TV show "Undercover Boss" show that top executives are unable to do hard manual work?
In reality, could there be a successful prosecution of insider trading here?
Lets just say I knew this guy who just told me over a beer that the company he is an executive of is about to acquire another company, information not yet released to the public, and acting on that secret information, I quickly purchases hundreds of shares then, when announced, sold for a huge profit?
A. How would they know to pick me out of the thousands of trades in the days leading up to it as the one that involved inside information?
B. Couldn’t I always claim that I didn’t know of the acquisition at the time of the trade? I mean, if all the evidence they have is knowing a guy from the company, that hardly proves I did something corrupt.
Hypothetically of course
A. Your account is profiled when you open it. If you had no trades leading up to this and suddenly purchased 10,000 shares of the target company right before deal was announced your trading data would be sent to the SEC.
B. The guy likely told more than you about the deal and a ‘cluster’ of trades might be seen forming an abnormal pattern that would be of interest to an SEC analyst.
Depending upon how you know this friend obviously it would be easy to link you. Posting on public forums like this is a start. Your IP address is captured and you can be easily identified.
Hypothetically…. Don’t do it.