Hedge funds use satellite images to beat Wall Street
This article is very wrong to confuse "material non-public information" with hard to acquire information like counting cars in satellite photos.<p>Remember the Matt Levine test: insider trading is about theft, not fairness.<p>When a company insider uses private company information to trade (or colludes with an outside party to do so) they are stealing material non-public information from the company for their own benefit. Nothing of the kind is happening when a hedge fund (or anyone else) acquires and analyzes satellite photos.<p>There is no expectation of fairness in the stock market. All sorts of people work very hard and spend a lot of money to develop proprietary information in the pursuit of stronger returns. There is nothing at all wrong wit this, especially because it means that in the end we all get more accurately priced securities.