Regulation Full Disclosure - Reg FD

Laws that require companies to fully disclose data relevant to its stock price broadly and fully in public forums so that all parties who could benefit from knowing this information, benefit equally and contemporaneously.

Or in industry parlance, it's Reg. F. D. Ohhh those whispery hallways of the 1970s and 80s. Insiders. Muckety mucks. Cheaters, liars, deceivers. Key employees on the take. Sound like the dramatic cover for a Hollywood movie?

Well, it was. And it was real life as well.

The practice of gleaning information essentially unavailable to the average investor was a large part of the practice of quote doing research unquote for all too many of the professional buyside investment firms of the era.

The regulators finally uh, noticed. And began to crack down with only modest success for a while, when finally Regulation Full Disclosure was enacted via the SEC in 2000.

That regulation massively prohibited the type of discussions that could happen among analysts and company insiders.

In fact, disclosure of more than much more than the company name, mailing address and the product they sold was prohibited, unless done in a broadly available and well publicized public forum.

The goal was to take away free money from insiders, who could make bets with waaaay more info on whether or not the roulette wheel was going to in fact land on red 23. So yeah. That’s what Reg FD is about.

Trust us. We’ve fully disclosed everything we know about it...