Is Insider Trading Part of the Fabric? (NYT article)

[Liberty]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/business/is-insider-trading-part-of-the-fabric-on-wall-street.html?_r=1

 

What exactly happened at Lehman? Mr. Parmigiani says traders there were routinely advised of changes in analysts’ company ratings before those changes were made public. That way, Lehman could profit on subsequent market moves. Here is how he describes it: First, research officials tipped off the traders; then Lehman’s proprietary trading desk, which cast bets with the firm’s own money, positioned itself accordingly. Lehman salespeople also alerted favored hedge funds. Only later, he says, were ratings changes made public.

 

Blowing the whistle on any big corporation, as Mr. Parmigiani tried to do in the case of Lehman, is almost always perilous. Shortly after noting the suspicious trading in Amkor, Mr. Parmigiani says, he was fired for not being a team player. He has since been unable to find work on Wall Street.