How to cover insider trading

Clark Merrefield of The Journalist’s Resource writes about how business reporters should cover Form 4 filings, which disclose insider trading.

Merrefield writes, “The filing in question is called a Form 4, known as an insider trading report. Insiders must file a Form 4 when they buy or sell company shares.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission defines insiders as certain executives, such as officers or directors, plus anyone who owns more than 10% of a publicly traded firm or anyone with access to information because of a relationship with a company insider.

“Despite its name, the existence of an insider trading report does not indicate illegal insider trading happened. It simply indicates that an insider traded shares — and doing so is not necessarily illegal.

“Form 4 filings are publicly available through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system — EDGAR. Enter ‘SVB Financial Group’ and the Form 4 from Becker that has received news attention appears as an ‘insider trading report’ filed March 1.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.