All it takes is a little patience. F. Scott Yeager, a former Enron executive, got some good news from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ruled that it wouldn't revisit his case. So, he no longer has criminal charges related to financial fraud hanging over him. Yeager has been acquitted on all counts. This follows a June ruling by the Supreme Court, which tossed a previous 5th Circuit Court ruling that could have resulted in a new trial.

The ruling said, "Today, ... it is clear under our initial ... analysis the jury made a finding in acquitting Yeager that precludes prosecution on insider trading and money laundering." Samuel Buffone, who was one of Yeager's attorneys, stated that his client shouldn't have been indicted to begin with and didn't do anything wrong. It has taken them seven years to get to this point.

Yeager landed in hot water because he sold stock in Enron for more than $54 million before it began the plunge that would ultimately end with its bankruptcy in 2001. He faced 125 counts, was acquitted of five (four for wire fraud and one for conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud) and wound up with a hung jury for the remaining 120, which included insider trading and money laundering. He was later indicted again on 13 counts of insider trading and money laundering.

So, I was flipping through some articles in Rolling Stone, when I found a very interesting economic story - yes, in Rolling Stone. The article, "Wall Street's Naked Swindle," takes a look at what happened in the options pits leading up to the death of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. According to the article, an unknown option buyer made "one of the craziest bets Wall Street has ever seen," by shorting Bear Stearns. The unknown trader felt that Bear Stearns would lose "more than half" of its value in nine days or less, a bet that one financial analyst likened to buying 1.7 million lottery tickets.

What is crazy is that this bet paid off, leading to only one conclusion: insider trading (cue dramatic music). When Bear Stearns dropped from roughly $63 to $2 per share on March 17th (just six days later), the person purchasing the options made roughly $270 million. Senator Chris Dodd from the Senate Banking Committee thought that something wasn't on the up and up with this trade, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) promised it would look into the trade. Of course, nothing has happened since.

The market has made a nice rebound in recent months, instilling confidence in investors that the worst is over.

But there's at least one negative indicator: Insiders are dumping stock. Charles Biderman of market research firm Trim Tabs tells Fortune that there were $31 worth of insider stock sales for every $1 in buying during the month of August. Worse, this comes at a time when public companies are raising money through stock offerings while putting the brakes on the share buybacks that were giving a boost to the stock market until the recent bear market.

Shares of American Apparel (AMEX: APP) have been poor performers since the company went public through a special-purpose acquisition vehicle, even though the company's same-store sales numbers have been incredibly impressive.

The company's shares have rebounded recently following the announcement of a major investment by Lion Capital. Now CEO Dov Charney is making his first trades in his company's stock since it went public and guess what? He's buying: 855,000 shares for $2.67 million, including 460,000 shares purchased on margin.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Shows Confidence With Another Big Share Purchase."

It's true. Ken Lewis purchased 200,000 shares of his company's battered stock on Wednesday, the day before the stock fell to it's lowest level since 1984.

Maybe Bank of America shares are undervalued and maybe they aren't. But seriously: Why would insider buying on the part of an executive who drove the company into a ditch precisely by making bad decisions about what to buy be a good indicator? If anything, I'd be inclined to sell anything that Ken Lewis is buying.

Confidence in the financials has plunged to yet another low and you know what that means: time to try to prop up the stock and generate good PR with some insider buying!

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Ken Lewis spent about $1.2 million to buy 200,000 shares of his company's stock and JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon spent $11.5 million on 500,000 shares of his stock.

"You have executives trying to shore up shareholder confidence,'' Harvard Business School professor Jay Lorsch told CNBC. "I would expect them to believe shareholders will interpret the purchases as a sign of long-term confidence, as investors worry about the state of the banking sector.''

What should shareholders make of it? Here's my take: It's hard to dismiss Dimon's $11.5 million investment as window dressing. Given that that company doesn't have the same questions circling its future that Bank of America does, I would say that investors should take comfort in it.

But Ken Lewis. Oh, Mr. Lewis. Lewis was paid nearly $100 million in 2007, so $1.2 million is hardly any great display of support. And even if it is: Given how wrong he was about Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial, why would investors interpret his buys as bullish? Mighn't he be more valuable as a contrarian indicator?

Adding to the suspiciousness is the fact that five Bank of America directors joined Lewis in buying stock during the same period. Can you say carefully orchestrated PR event?

Say it ain't so, Mark Cuban.

Yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the billionaire with insider trading. The regulatory agency claims that Cuban sold shares of mamma.com, a Canada-based Internet search company, with the advance knowledge of a yet-to-be-disclosed private equity offering of company shares.

Cuban allegedly sold his shares under the assumption that the private offering would greatly dilute his holdings. Selling as he did prevented the loss of some $750,000, the SEC claims in its charges.

He denies the charges and vows to fight.

Mamma.com changed its name to Copernic Inc. (NASDAQ: CNIC) in 2007. As a result of the highly publicized charges against Cuban, I expected to see trading volume in CNIC increase from its current average volume of 45,000 shares.

Sure enough, volume yesterday was at more than 350,000 shares. The lemmings are so predictable. They see something on the news and they place a trade.

No matter that the reasons for the company being in the news have little to do with the business, its current state or its future potential. The company is in the news because of insider trading, period.

Now, is that a reason for a stock to go up in value?

The breaking news is that the SEC is charging Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, with insider trading related to sales of shares in Mamma.com, Inc., now Copernic, Inc. (NASDAQ: CNIC). The entrepreneur billionaire allegedly dumped 600,000 shares in the Internet search engine company when he found out it was raising money by selling shares in a private offering. This information was not publicly known.

The SEC filed its complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, saying that in June, 2004, Cuban was invited to participate in the stock offering after he agreed to keep the information confidential. Knowing the offering would be conducted at a discount, Cuban then sold his entire 6% ownership within a few hours after he learned about it. When the financing was announced the next day, the company's shares dropped more than 10% due to dilution concerns. Cuban thus avoided more than $750,000 in losses.

If these allegations are true, this is a classic case of insider trading. The public had no way of knowing the stock price would drop, while Cuban and other insiders did. The SEC release didn't mention what other insiders did, but it seems, for now at least, that only Cuban acted on the information.

I've had about all the news of corruption I can take. Of course, I don't mean to sound accusatory, or find Mark Cuban guilty before he has been properly tried, but it's just the timing of it. When the world is swirling into a global recession based on greed, and probably at least a little bit of corruption, these news items are definitely ones I can do without.

With its stock price in the toilet, Lear (NYSE: LEA) Chairman and CEO Robert Rossiter bought about $400,000 worth of stock.

That, and the fact that The Wall Street Journal picked up (subscription required) the story was enough to drive the stock up nearly 25% today on no other news. But here's a newsflash: the PR value of the purchase far exceeds the actual value of the investment -- $400,000 worth of insider buying drove the company's market cap up more than $20 million. Other insiders have since followed suit and purchased token amounts of stock: the CFO and the president of global seating systems,

Making me even more skeptical of the situation, Rossiter told the Journal that "The stock is so undervalued, it's unbelievable."

Rossiter is milking this transaction for all the positive publicity he can get -- something that Lear has been sorely lacking for a long time.

Orchestrated insider buying accompanied by media interviews makes me skeptical, and investors are better off focusing on the real story: even after these high profile buys, Mr. Rossiter still owns well under 1% of the company's stock. That's hardly a vote of confidence.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL - option chain) shares are dropping along with much of the overall market. Today the company announced it would acquire Advanced Visual Technology, but what I am looking at is the recent insider activity on ORCL, which indicates that one of the company's president's, Safra Catz, exercised 500K of stock options and almost immediately sold the stock for about $10 million about two weeks ago at a price near $20 per share.

Oracle has tumbled over the past month or so, and if those in the know are still selling at $3 less than recent August prices, then that is ringing some alarm bells for me. Granted, insider activity is not a perfect indicator, since he might have had needed cash for some reason, but if Ms. Catz thought the stock would be rising in the next few weeks, then she probably would have waited to sell, right? If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on ORCL.

This morning, ORCL opened at $20.19. So far today the stock has hit a low of $19.55 and a high of $20.19. As of 12:15, ORCL is trading at $19.78, down $0.53 (-2.6%). The chart for ORCL looks bearish and S&P gives ORCL a very positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy ranking.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an October bear-call credit spread above the $21 range.

Shares of Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) were affected not to long ago by reports that founder, chairman and CEO Steve Jobs is cancer-free. Of course, that's good news for Apple shareholders but it got me to thinking -- just as a hypothetical matter -- is Mr. Jobs' medical status nonpublic information?

Suppose that his doctor had conducted an examination and found Mr. Jobs to be in tip-top shape -- if he goes out and buys call options before the news reaches the media, is that insider trading? I'm not sure. It seems unethical on a multitude of levels, but it isn't related to the company in a direct, material way like news about an upcoming merger would be. Just to be clear: I'm speaking hypothetically and have no reason to believe anything like this happened.

Similarly, could the SEC go after a doctor who, after determining that a legendary CEO had six months to live, bought put options set to expire on the approximate day of the CEO's death? I know this is morbid, but the law appears to be ambiguous on this matter.

In a press release, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had filed insider trading charges against Beaufort, South Carolina mayor William J. Rauch. The SEC alleges that he "purchased stock in Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (OTC: ACTC), immediately after one of its executives informed him about a breakthrough embryonic stem cell technique that the company was about to disclose publicly. According to the SEC's complaint, Rauch was told the information was confidential, and he had previously signed an agreement with the company that barred him from using confidential company information for his own benefit."

He agreed to pay $20,708 in disgorgement, $2,576 in prejudgment interest, $20,708 in penalties, and promised not to do it again -- without admitting or denying guilt, of course.

But it gets worse. According to the SEC's complaint (PDF File):

In mid-2005, Rauch entered into a written Finder's Fee Agreement ("Agreement") with Advanced Cell. Under the Agreement, Rauch agreed to refer potential investors to Advanced Cell. In exchange for Rauch's services, Advanced Cell granted Rauch an option to buy 48,000 shares of Advanced Cell stock and promised him a referral fee equal to a percentage of any amounts raised.

Translation: The mayor of Beaufort, South Carolina, in addition to the fact that he just settled insider trading charges, was also a shill for a penny stock, telling people he knew to invest in the company while pocketing a "referral fee" from the company. Given that he apparently had few qualms about trading on insider information, it seems likely that he had no problem steering people into shares of Advanced Cell Technology without disclosing his massive conflict of interest.

The announcement of the embryonic stem cell technique sent shares of the stock up to $1.83. They closed yesterday at 2.5 cents. I recognize that the standards of ethics for elected officials are pretty low, but citizens of Beaufort should give this clown the boot.

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) shares have been slipping some of late. Recent insider selling is also flashing a warning for this stock. Over the past three months, insiders have sold $59.0 miilion worth of ANF stock. Insider selling has slowed its pace over the past few months, but it is still happening. A filing released on Saturday indicated that a director at the company sold 7800 shares of ANF, valued at over $500,000. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on ANF.

After hitting a one-year high of $85.77 in October, the stock hit a one-year low of $66.05 in January. This morning, ANF opened at $72.72. So far today the stock has hit a low of $70.50 and a high of $72.72. As of 12:25, ANF is trading at $70.70, down $1.90 (-2.6%). The chart for ANF looks bullish but deteriorating, while S&P gives the stock a very positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy rating.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an August bear-call credit spread above the $85 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. This particular trade will make a 6.4% return in three months as long as ANF is below $80 at August expiration. ANF would have to rise by more than 21% before we would start to lose money.

ANF hasn't been above $85 by more than a few cents at all in the past year and has shown resistance around $78 recently. This trade could be risky if the company's earnings (due out in on 8/15) are a positive surprise, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by resistance ANF might find at its 200 day moving average, which is currently around $77.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in ANF.

For as long as companies have been required to report insider trades, investors have looked to them as a predictor of the future. Jim Cramer often says that while insiders sell shares for any number of reasons (estate planning, diversification, taxes, divorce, etc.), they buy for only one reason: they think the stock price is going to go up.

A piece in Forbes looks at some ETFs that construct portfolios based on insider sentiment. In a broad sense, I think the idea makes sense, but I'd be very hesitant to buy or sell a stock based on insider trading for a few reasons:

• You might look to insider trades as an indicator of the executives' broad sentiment about the industry or company. But remember: they're not allowed to make trades when they're in possession of material non-public information (unless the trades were prearranged). So if you're buying stock because you think the CEO has some secret knowledge motivating his trades, remember this: you are buying stock because you think the CEO is a crook.
• As insider sentiment has become more carefully tracked by a variety of services, savvy executives and directors use it as a red herring to try to prop up sagging stock prices. If you see the CEO and the entire board of directors purchase a negligible amount of stock in a short period of time, it's pretty clear what happened. "John, our stock's in trouble, and shareholders are going to start complaining about how we paid ourselves $800 million while the stock went from $30 to 6 cents." "You're right, Kathy. Let's all take one day's worth of salary and buy a few thousand shares. That way people will realize that we're committed to the company and, while we're flooding the EDGAR database with Form 4s, we can also slip in the 8-K disclosing that we're being sued because our tricycles cause herpes."

Bottom line: insider trading is one of many factors to look at when evaluating a stock. On average, it might be bullish, and that might make it worth exploring the ETFs mentioned in the Forbes piece. But be sketpical when someone urges you to buy a particular stock because of the insider trading.

When the current CEO of a $500 million company sells 3.2 million shares of stock -- more than half of his holdings -- it's bound to raise some eyebrows.

So give True Religion Apparel (NASDAQ: TRLG) for not trying to slip that one through. Instead, the company took the unusual step of issuing a press release announcing the sales by founder Jeffrey Lubbell before the filing of the Form 4 with the SEC. Of course, it couldn't help using the press release as an opportunity at spin. Take a look:

Mr. Lubell sold these shares for two purposes: first, to fulfill an obligation due under the marital dissolution agreement with his former wife; and second, to continue his financial, estate and tax planning.

So that explains it! Except how much of it was to settle the marital dissolution agreement (Us poor folk call it divorce...) and how much of it was for "financial, estate and tax planning"?

And more importantly, what exactly is "financial, estate and tax planning"? Or better yet, what stock sale wouldn't fall under the umbrella of financial planning? Might he have sold the shares to build a house made of gold, buy an island, or take a vacation in outer space? Of course the shares were sold for financial purposes! Any transaction involving money is financial.

This press release looks like a pretty desperate attempt at damage control. It'll be interesting to see how the market responds.