Random Thoughts on The City, Wall St & Capitalism

Look at the front of the FT today. One of the headlines is 'Trader fined for passing 'outsider' information'. The article is at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6a6012d8-7b2e-11db-bf9b-0000779e2340.html. The facts seem to be that an equity salesman passed on publicly available information dressing it up in sales patter, and passing it off as though it were inside information, in a rather amateurish fashion. So the nice boys in the CSFB compliance department reported him to the FSA. See and all the business lines always complain that the compliance department does nothing. They are a dynamic hot bed of regulatory activity. So the FSA now fines the poor man £20,000.In the absence of being able to catch anyone actually committing real 'insider trading', it seems now it's ok to get people for 'outsider trading'. So literally following the FSA's logic, outside is inside, therefore up is down, losses are profits, so market abuse must be compliance. So why do we need compliance functions or the FSA?

RB