The Explosion in Insider Trading cases and Penalties under the Obama Administration

Original data available here.  The number of insider trading cases increased from 6 a year under President George W. Bush to 15 a year under President Obama.  The big increase in cases under Obama didn't come until 2011, which isn't surprising as it takes some time after a case is brought before a sentence is determined.  This bodes ill for the increase over cases during the rest of the Obama administration.  Some economists have questioned whether there should even be insider trading laws.  The arbitrariness of what is considered insider trading makes it so that government can often invent crimes after the fact.

Government sponsored insider trading

From the WSJ:

Several times a month, the Labor Department invites news reporters to a sealed room for an early look at soon-to-be-released reports such as the unemployment rate. One organization attending in recent years stands out from the rest. 

Founded by an investment firm and now owned by the Deutsche Börse stock exchange, Need To Know News has operated with an overriding mission: sending data directly from the government through high-speed lines to financial firms that are able to trade on it instantly. Some have paid $375,000 a year for the service. 

The ability of such an organization to gain a position at the heart of the government's system for releasing economic reports turns on its head an embargo arrangement created decades ago to give writers time to digest complex data and produce reports for broad public dissemination. . . .

Did Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary facilitate insider trading?

From Bloomberg:

. . . On the morning of July 21, before the Eton Park meeting, Paulson had spoken to New York Times reporters and editors, according to his Treasury Department schedule. A Times article the next day said the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were inspecting Fannie and Freddie’s books and cited Paulson as saying he expected their examination would give a signal of confidence to the markets.
A Different Message
At the Eton Park meeting, he sent a different message, according to a fund manager who attended. Over sandwiches and pasta salad, he delivered that information to a group of men capable of profiting from any disclosure.
Around the conference room table were a dozen or so hedge- fund managers and other Wall Street executives -- at least five of them alumni of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), of which Paulson was chief executive officer and chairman from 1999 to 2006. In addition to Eton Park founder Eric Mindich, they included such boldface names as Lone Pine Capital LLC founder Stephen Mandel, Dinakar Singh of TPG-Axon Capital Management LP and Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC. . . .
Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out. So too would the various classes of preferred stock, he said.
The fund manager says he was shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information -- to his mind, leaving little doubt that the Treasury Department would carry out the plan. The managers attending the meeting were thus given a choice opportunity to trade on that information. . . .

Insider Trading Washington Style

Whoever said that working for the government was a financial sacrifice? Given the amount of money given out by the Federal government, stock prices must be hugely affected. From the WSJ:

Chris Miller nearly doubled his $3,500 stock investment in a renewable-energy firm in 2008. It was a perfectly legal bet, but he's no ordinary investor.

Miller is the top energy-policy adviser to Nevada Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who helped pass legislation that wound up benefiting the firm.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid's office, initially defended Miller's purchase of shares in the company, Energy Conversion Devices Inc. He said the aide had no influence over tax incentives for renewable-energy firms, and that other factors boosted the stock.

But on Sunday, Manley added: "Mr. Miller showed poor judgment and Senator Reid has made it very clear to Chris and all his staff that their actions must not only follow the law, but must meet the higher standards the public has a right to expect from elected officials and their staffs."

Miller isn't the only Congressional staffer making such stock bets. At least 72 aides on both sides of the aisle traded shares of companies that their bosses help oversee, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of more than 3,000 disclosure forms covering trading activity by Capitol Hill staffers for 2008 and 2009. . . .

A few lawmakers proposed a bill that would prevent members and employees of Congress from trading securities based on nonpublic information they obtain. The legislation has languished since 2006. . . .