

Ask YC: Using Employee Stock Purchase plans to cover short positions? - drandall

Can individual companies enable this sort of behavior legally? Is this more of a technical or ethical question?<p>Edit: this sort of behavior: short selling your own stock
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drandall
Follow up - theoretically, if I thought my employer's stock was going to go
down but wasn't privy to nonpublic info, could I put on a short position to
lock in gains or ride out a dip? Or is just working for that co enough to make
that illegal?

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olefoo
Talk to a lawyer; but I'm pretty sure that using employee owned stock as
collateral for covering a short position is illegal.

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noodle
i _think_ this is more an ethical decision. however, if i were an employee and
my company offered me stock options instead of a check, i'd be looking for a
new job.

