Illegal insider trading has been rather active recently. When an offer was made for Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ) by News Corp (NYSE: NWS), I mentioned some odd option activity. It wasn't long before the SEC was investigating and a Hong Kong couple was investigated. Some estimates of the insider trading show that about 50% of buyouts and mergers have illegal activity.

This morning aQuantive (NASDAQ: AQNT) is up about 77% to 63.64 on a buyout from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). It took me about 5 minutes to dig up some "unusual" activity. If you look at the June 40 calls (QBT FH) there is some "interesting activity."

A call option gives the purchaser the right (or option) to buy a stock at a set price. Each option contract gives the right to buy 100 shares of stock. For easy comparison to stock prices, option prices are always quoted in cents per share.

Continue reading $6.7M insider trading on aQuantive buyout?

$6.7M insider trading on aQuantive buyout? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 18 May 2007 11:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.