"Insiders are not always careful about when they trade. A Report on Business examination of trading in more than 130 stocks whose prices moved on news in recent months yielded a surprising list of cases that inspire questions about when insiders should avoid the market.

The 25 examples highlighted today and tomorrow include trades done before news (both good and bad) or so soon afterward that people were still figuring out how to react. Company officials sold shares before dismal earnings reports and bought-deal financings that depressed share prices. Others bought shares or acquired them by exercising stock options before happier announcements. The chairman of a mining company sold a week before a lacklustre quarterly report. The controlling shareholder of a communications company topped up his holdings days before a stock buyback was announced.

This was not hard-core insider abuse concealed by offshore accounts or secret nominees.

It was open, presumably honest trading, duly reported to the authorities. The reports can be viewed on any computer linked to the Internet. They may tell you that the people who run a company have been in the market at times when you wonder whether they had an extra edge, but you won't know for sure unless you can read minds"