My friend claims my method for investing may not be allowed, can anyone clear this up for me?


Hey all. So I am a software engineer and have a fair bit of stocks in various places. I put most of my money into the big safe investments like VT but I also dabble a bit in riskier stocks. One method I have found work well for me is this:

  1. As a software engineer I interview a lot year round. It is frequent to job hop but also it is common to do interviews just for practice.
  2. As part of these interviews I get to know more about the companies like what they do, their business model, etc.
  3. The way this helps me (and what causes my friend to claim this isn't allowed) is I can ask stuff about why they're hiring and what projects they have coming up.

On point 3 they typically go more in depth and may provide answers like “we've had some layoffs, people left, etc” or “we have a big project being released soon involving XYZ and are building a team for it.”

Based off a lot of this information I will short or long their stock. This has worked well for me for a few years and has consistently gotten me a few extra thousand a month. Is this not allowed? They're telling me this information as someone who does not work at their company. I feel like it makes sense if I know they have some initiative in plans or they are downsizing or whatever that it will impact their stock.


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