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The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint today against a California man who allegedly used confidential information about Disney’s planned acquisition of Marvel Entertainment — obtained from his girfriend, a Disney employee — to buy up Marvel stock options before the August 2009 sale and collect $192,000 after the deal was made public and Marvel shares soared. The complaint said that Toby G. Scammell got the insider information from his girlfriend’s BlackBerry and used some cash for his purchase from the account of his older brother, who was in the Army and deployed to Iraq at the time. The options raised a red flag at the SEC as Scammell, then 24, had never traded Marvel securities before buying the $5,400 in options. After the sale was announced, Marvel’s stock rose 25%, giving Scammell a 3,000% profit when he sold off.
Boyfriend Accused Of Insider Trading Ahead of Disney-Marvel Deal
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Jesus, is his last name really SCAMmel?
How unfortunate.
Slap him on the wrist, and let him keep his money. Too many worse crimes happening.
Is that you, Toby G. Scammell? LOL. Oh, please. Give it a rest. Just because there are crooks who get away with insider trading doesn’t mean that this clown should get a free pass. If anything, it just means the law needs to be more strictly enforced.
And he collected $162,000 not $192,000.
So John Mack and his family can inside trade in the millions with little question and this guy will be nailed for making a few thousand with a US serviceman.
Money he’ll no doubt need to pay for the physical/psychological rehab the VA will find a way not to pay for when/if his brother every gets back from Iraq.
The real criminalls are on Wall Street, we all know this. But let’s pretend they’re the guy who looked at his girlfriends BkackBerry. Keep it status quo.
There is no way this doesn’t happen DAILY. eeek.
That’s odd. When my wife worked for one of the Studios and I looked at her Blackberry, all I found were emasculating, expletive ridden, insults from her boss.
It always sucks when your wife is emasculated.
ya, that’s what i thought too
The guy used his initiative. The SEC likes to make a token insider trading case every now and again to make people feel like the financial markets are a level playing field. They’re not. Insider dealing happens all the time, but on a much larger scale.
Wait… I don’t know much about stock trading, but how would the value of a stock rising 25% lead to this guy’s shares being worth 3000% more than what he paid?
Anyway, once that deal was announced I thought back to when I was in college and Marvel had just gone bankrupt, with the stock being worth pennies. I was so tempted to buy a bunch of it just to have some back then. If only…
Only when Marvel re-launched AFTER bankruptcy (at 3 or 4 dollars) with new owners, would you have been safe to buy. If you bought the stock in bankruptcy when it traded down to as little as 50 cents you would have lost it all as bankruptcy closes.
Re bought options, not the stock itself
This country is insane…
With Wall Street, The Banks, the Short Sellers, the Brokers destroying the economy, this is the best the SEC can come up with? WTF
Another BANNER day for the SEC, busting 24 year old “inside traders” who put a few grand in the market and make a little money, while the TRILLIONAIRES who do that same shit on a daily basis are driving around in their Maybachs. Its nice to know our tax money is being used to combat this caliber of criminal.
He’s being punished because he isn’t a real member of the insider trading club.
The only thing this idiot did wrong is invest so little.
Was it really worth risking jail time for a $150K – seriously? At least be a man and scam the system for millions.
- Gordon
This economist sent all these red flags to the SEC regarding Madoff and they did nothing, but this one little guy they swoop down on like a SWAT team.
I’m tempted to start a legal defense fund for this guy.
Because he bought options not the actual stock. More risk, more possible upside.
Can someone explain to me what actually constitutes insider trading?
Frankly I don’t get it. He got knowledge about a real world event and decided to take a risk that the event would drive up the cost of a company’s stock. His instincts paid off and he made some money. Isn’t that what any trader does and should do? No one makes blind investments, flipping coins or closing their eyes and stabbing at a newspaper to pick a company.
Obviously it wasn’t likely that the stock would go down, but it COULD have. Would he be punished then, too?
I always thought insider trading was supposed to stop those who were manipulating stocks, actually affecting events to change the stock price to make money (ie. that what made them an “insider”).
I don’t see what this guy did was wrong. Someone straighten me out here.
Geeze Rob, didn’t you see WallStreet?