But in this case, even the most experienced information traders did not know what to believe.
After a year spent hoovering up information from traders and making some suggestions of his own, Mr Esteves was given his own berth on the trading floor.
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According to Seff, Brodsky made the same information available to all traders and considered himself something of an information exchange.
There's other information for amateur traders as well, such as stocks where lockup periods on insider sales are about to expire.
As the SEC tells the story, Hertz knew in July 2003 that revenue from Track Data's flagship product, MX, which provides market information to professional traders, was declining.
The defendants were convicted in 2009 of one count of conspiracy for selling day traders access to the information that came from the internal squawk boxes, allowing the traders to beat larger firms to orders on securities.
In short, exchanges have long been in the business of attempting to control information, enabling some traders to execute orders faster than others.
They fear that regulators will no longer be satisfied with the internal rules that prohibit advisory teams at a bank from giving traders confidential information.
Mitchel Guttenberg, 41, an institutional client manager at UBS Securities, was charged with passing material--nonpublic information--to traders Erik Franklin, 39, formerly of Bear Stearns, and David Tavdy, 38, formerly of Assent, a New York broker-dealer.
Such channel-check information has become crucial to Apple traders, who have come to expect a weekly dose of information from channel checks about Apple's iPad and iPod businesses.
Prosecutors also are investigating whether some hedge-fund traders received inside information about Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Those who manage the books must be tough and smart enough to challenge the information they collect from their traders.
Senator Kaufman and others have been advocating for more information about these high-frequency traders.
The fact that the Transports did not make new lows with the Industrials gave traders and investors valuable information on which sector was likely to be the strongest.
Now, the investigation appears to be expanding to hedge-fund traders who allegedly used insider information gathered this way.
The initial purpose of the club was to share information that would give these novice stock traders a way to make a few bucks to supplement their salary.
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Tough times for the financial services industry translate into tough times for the news and data providers that supply traders and dealmakers with the information they need to do their jobs.
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Some traders question the value of such information, but Shukhman clearly craved it.
The need for the SEC to have better access to information is heightened by the fact that large traders, including high-frequency traders, are believed to be playing an increasingly prominent role in the securities markets.
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The wide-ranging probe described by the Journal appears to target networks of traders who paid certain consultants for information, some of it derived from people like technology resellers who can offer their insights into how a particular line of products is selling.
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Thus we can see traders as the mechanism by which the information is processed by the market.
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While Prince's unit was barred from sharing information with Sempra's regulated utilities, the traders had a granular view of the marketplace that helped Felsinger see opportunities early.
According to prosecutors, his conspirators and stoolies gave him private, confidential corporate information, and they allegedly included other hedge funds traders, industry consultants and, as we said, corporate directors.
For traders, says Mr Jarnefelt, "information is everything" though as long-term investments, bond prices are particularly sensitive to events with long-term impacts.
And since they were the conduits through which this business passed, the information helped to give their smart, tech-savvy traders an edge.
The two "purposely withheld vital information on the sale of the bank from other share traders to implement their crime and violated the principles of transparency and equality between traders, " according to a statement from prosecutors.
Monetary prices improved information about values and supply and demand, reducing risks for traders and vendors.
Goldman's hundreds of traders are assisted by some of the most sophisticated information technology in the world.
Critics of aggressive insider-trading prosecutions say investors are actually aided by the snooping of hedge funds and other traders who help prices adjust more rapidly to significant information.
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Here, some traders have an edge because they can get trading information anywhere from one to 10 milliseconds faster than others, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal last week.
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