Friday, July 9, 2010

Trial set for Wall Street insider Danielle Chiesi

Trial set for Wall Street insider Danielle Chiesi

In the high-power, high-risk game of information trading, Danielle Chiesi has become “a confirmation of all (people have) suspected is wrong with Wall Street and the hedge fund industry,” as outlined by Fortune. Former IBM executive Bob Moffat and Danielle Chiesi have both been arrested and charged with securities fraud and conspiracy.

Source of article: Danielle Chiesi on trial for insider trading by Personal Money Store

How Danielle Chiesi got inside Wall Street

Danielle Chiesi was an employee of Raj Rajaratnam, head of the Galleon hedge fund. Danielle Chiesi traded mostly and primarily in information. When she was working for Galleon, Danielle targeted a number of companies and developed relationships with people inside those companies. Fortune reports that Danielle would develop these relationships by telling men that she loved “the three S's – sex, stocks, and sports. On Wall Street, Danielle was known as a strong seductress who could get details out of most men.

What Danielle Chiesi is accused of

By gathering the info, Danielle Chiesi wasn't breaking any laws… but by sharing the data and using it for personal gain, she was. By gathering and passing on inside info about tech stocks, Chiesi was allegedly participating in insider trading. Chiesi pleaded not guilty to the charges, and she is on trial right now.

How insider trading is a crime

Understanding insider trading can be very difficult. Stock markets are based upon on ideas of fairness – every person betting with the exact same information. Trades are unfair when somebody making the trade has information about a business that the public doesn't know. Put simply, Danielle Chiesi was cheating the system. Martha Stewart was convicted of this exact same crime. Info can be seduced out of executives, especially by younger women who claim to be into older men. Could the fact that money can be this easily gamed out of the system inspire any kind of confidence within the system?



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