Robert: The best way I can think of to answer your question is to go straight to the "horses mouth". And that is, the SEC:
Office of Investor Education and Assistance
450 Fifth Street, N.W.
Room 2424, 2nd Floor
Washington, D.C. 20549-0213
Phone: (202) 942-7040
Fax: (202) 942-9634
E-Mail: help@sec.gov
If you call the 202 area code number you'll be greeted with the usual automated selection function. Once it answers select, as I did, item 4(problem or question about the SEC securities laws).
The individual I spoke with, a Mr. Hardy, said that there isn't any proscribed period of time before which an insider can buy.....BUT, if they buy based on material information(like contract in hand, etc., etc.) not yet made available to the general public, then that is illegal.
From what he also told me the SEC now has automated systems that do routine sweeps for insider trading once a company makes a "significant, or major" contract announcement, just to determine if that kind of mischief had gone on. By the way, on an aside, apparently there are no SEC rules requiring companies to prevent employees from buying/selling their company around quarterly, or annual earnings release time. It's just that most companies do this, just to eleviate(spelling?) suspicion. Interesting, eh?
Anyway, hope this helps. To me the bottom line is we can't necessarily expect anything soon from this insider transaction....but longer term somebody sure has some confidence, no? ;-)
John~ |
