A group of pension funds that oversee more than $3 trillion in assets asked U.S. securities regulators to revamp rules on how corporate executives can trade their company stock, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In a letter sent on Friday to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Council of Institutional Investors expressed concern that corporate insiders might be abusing their position by improperly profiting from trading their company shares while in possession of confidential information. In an analysis of trading by more than 20,000 executives since 2004, the Wall Street Journal last month found that 1,418 executives who traded their company stock in the week before news was announced averaged gains of 10 percent—or avoided losses of 10 percent—within a week of their trades. Executives are barred from trading based on important, nonpublic information.
