insider trading

noun

1. the illegal buying and selling of securities by persons acting on privileged information.

insider trading

1. The unlawful practice of using information that comes from a source “inside” the business but is not available to the general public to trade on the stock market. This activity is prohibited by law and is policed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the mid-1980s, several revelations of insider trading rocked Wall Street.

Other Word Forms

• insider trader noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of insider trading¹

First recorded in 1965–70