Martha Stewart was convicted of a felony. Once you are convicted of a felony, you are no longer allowed to vote, own any handguns, hold a passport, and it becomes increasingly difficult to hold legitimate employment. There are other things you can't do, but I'm not sure what they all are at the moment.

Insider trading is when a stockholder sells stock based on information not available to the public. Martha Stewart sold her ImClone (a company that manufactures prescription drugs) stock because she got word from her broker that the founder of ImClone was going to sell his because a new drug was not going to be approved by the FDA, and the stock price was expected to fall dramatically. By law, the broker was not supposed to provide this information to his clients, because he had inside knowledge. However, he told his client Ms. Stewart, and she acted accordingly. Insider trading is a felony as I mentioned previously. She could very well go to prison, though it looks like she's going to get a light sentence. She won't be sentenced until June, though, so who knows what will happen by then.

This has nothing to do with AIM or any other internet application. This does, however, have a lot to do with greed.

I hope that clears up any confusion. I worked in the financial industry for a while and became rather well versed in what insider trading is. Otherwise, it is a rather confusing subject, I'll admit.

Sorry, you do not have permission to comment.

If you are a member, try logging in again or accessing this page here.