Last week my fellow blogger Kevin Kersten pointed out some pretty compelling evidence that some insider information had been leaked regarding the News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ) deal, and now it looks like he hit the nail on the head. A husband-and-wife pair from Hong Kong are officially the first people to have charges brought against them for trading on insider information.According to the charges that were made today, Kan King Wong and Charlotte Ka On Wong Leung, made millions off illegal trading of Dow Jones stock in the days leading up to the announced deal. All said and done it looks like the man and wife team were able to bank over $8 million in profit from the purchase of 415,000 shares of Dow Jones stock in the 2 weeks leading up to the announcement.
As the story unfolds I expect that these will not be the last charges that the SEC issues in their investigation. Let's not forget that there are still around 10,000 call options on Dow Jones that traded in the weeks before the deal was announced that still need to be accounted for. If you think that the $8 million profit this couple made on the stock purchases was impressive, I can assure you that the profits off the 10,000 suspicious call options that were traded will be much more impressive. Consider that each of the 10,000 contracts represents 100 shares of stock and we are talking about control over 1 million shares. We have definitely not heard the last out of this story just yet.
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
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