More on the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading case

Monday, 19th October 2009

A few quick thoughts, following on from my previous post:

  • The FBI allege that Raj has been insider trading for a long time, so he must have a lot of names. Is the high profile arrest and the choice of criminal charges an attempt to get him to co-operate?
  • These appear to be specimen charges. A few tens of millions of dollar is a negligible amount for Galleon or Raj
  • Is Galleon really a hedge fund? I have been told that it is not geared, and it does not seem to use quant strategies either. A long-short alpha fund seems a better description.
  • A lot of new sources are reporting what I predicted in my previous post: that this is just the start of a sustained crackdown.
  • Raj invested heavily in Sri Lanka and there has been some speculation on whether that was insider trading. It seems to have been mostly country or sector punts so probably not. Insider trading is so widespread in Sri Lanka that it hardly matters anyway.