How Wall Street billionaire Steve Cohen survived an insider trading scandal
CBC Radio, 07 April 2017
Scandal on Wall Street didn’t end with 2008’s financial crisis. New Yorker staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar chronicles the rise and fall of the prominent hedge fund SAC Capital in a new book, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street.
Kolhatkar explains how insider trading allegations dogged the company and its ultra-rich founder, Steven Cohen. Cohen “was an iconic figure in the financial industry,” she tells The Current’s Friday host Piya Chattopadhyay.
And his approach to investing made his company one of the most successful hedge funds on Wall Street. In explaining the title of her book, Kolhatkar says “edge” is information that provides a trader with some advantage in the market. Among portfolio managers, three kinds of edge were discussed, she says.
“White edge” is publicly available information financial disclosures, news releases, etc. “Black edge” is potentially the stuff of insider trading proprietary, unreleased information that could affect a company’s stock price.
