Steven A. Cohen Quotes

In some respects, inside information is a form of financial steroid. It is unfair: it is offensive; it is unlawful; and it puts a black mark on the entire enterprise.

There is something about inside information which seems to paralyse a man's reasoning powers.

When I was 15 years old, I read an article about Ivan Boesky, the well-known takeover trader - turned out years later it was all on inside information! But before that came to light, he was very successful, very flamboyant. And I thought, 'This is what I want to do.' So I'm 15 years old, I decide I'm going to Wall Street.

While markets are supposed to ensure transparency by showing orders to everyone simultaneously, flash orders are currently allowed because of a loophole in securities regulations that allows for immediate trades.

Get inside information from the president and you will probably lose half your money. If you get it from the chairman of the board, you will lose all of your money.

Tiptoeing on a tightrope past insider trading laws may be deft and clever, but it doesn't make it right.

Right, but there's expertise and then there's inside information. And I think we have to make a distinction.

I'm not an ultra-libertarian who thinks there shouldn't be insider-trading laws at all.

A word or two I must trouble you with, concerning compound interest; for compound interest is discountenanced by the law. I suppose, as a sort of usury. That, without an express stipulation, the law never gives it.

I should be sorry if on this occasion the House should decide that speculations in the funds are violations of either the moral or political law. A government hardly exists in which such speculation is disallowed.

Since this report has been read in the House, a spirit of havoc, speculation and ruin, has arisen by people who had access to the information… Three vessels Sir have sailed within a fortnight freighted for speculation; they are intended to purchase up the State and other securities in the hands of the uninformed but honest citizens of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. My soul rises indignant at the avaricious and immoral turpitude which so vile a conduct displays.

Anybody who covers Washington and Wall Street knows that there is an awesome amount of self-dealing, most of it perfectly legal.

I have very little respect for the integrity of the trading on the exchange in most stocks. And I have particular disdain for the fact that the SEC has failed to deal with high-frequency traders who are doing nothing more than taking advantage of inside information, a buy or a sell order, because of technology advantages.

The idea of insider information to me is almost, like, laughable.

I've prosecuted several financial crimes at the federal level and I've also defended plenty in my private practice.

Well, what I can say about Denmark... Every law firm in town has some business with Danske Bank.

Banks and investors don't usually view a high-ranking executive in the company selling off massive amounts of stock as a good thing.

This is Wall Street, and today is important. Because tomorrow, July 4th, I intended to make my first million dollars--an excitingday in a man's life. The enterprise was slightly illegal.

Learn to take losses quickly and cleanly. There is something about inside information which seems to paralyze a man's reasoning powers. Beware of barbers, beauticians, waiters - or anyone - bringing gifts of 'inside' information or tips. Don't try to be a jack of all investment. Stick to the field you know best.

The longer I operated on Wall Street the more distrustful I became of tips and inside information of every kind. Given time, I believe that inside information can break the Bank of England

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

Funny stories on set - there are thousands of them, but they are only funny to the people who were on the movies. You start to have inside jokes and gallows humor. You have all kinds of things you laugh at, but as soon as you tell somebody, the joke falls flat because they don't know the context of it.

I report the assault on nature evidenced in coal mining that tears the tops off mountains and dumps them into rivers, sacrificing the health and lives of those in the river valleys to short-term profit, and I see a link between that process and the stock-market frenzy which scorns long-term investments-genuine savings-in favor of quick turnovers and speculative bubbles whose inevitable bursting leaves insiders with stuffed pockets and millions of small stockholders, pensioners, and employees out of work, out of luck, and out of hope.

I think (fantasy football) has become something that needs to be looked at in terms of regulation. Effectively, it's day trading without any regulation at all. When you have insider information, which has apparently been the case, when you have people who use that information, use big data to try and take advantage of it, there has to be some regulation. If they can't regulate themselves, then the NFL needs to look at moving away from them a little bit, and there should be some regulation.

If you're a realist, you know that people have different roles to play in politics, economics, and this is an important role, but I do think that there has to be an understanding of how what happens here on Wall Street has such broad consequences not just for the domestic but the global economy, so more thought has to be given to the process and transactions and regulations so that we don't kill or maim what works, but we concentrate on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power that exists here.