Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT148 S2 P3 Q14 Explanation

Insider-Trading

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsPrimary PurposeLaw

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Passage

Passage A Insider-trading law makes it a crime to make stock transactions, or help others make stock transactions, based on information you have ahead of the special position within a company.

However, trading based on information you have that everyone else doesn’t—isn’t this part of the very definition of a functioning stock market? The entire field of stock brokering is based on people gaining knowledge that others don’t have and then using it to profit themselves or their clients. If you analyze a have. That doesn’t make you a criminal; it means you’ve done your homework.

Stock markets work best when all the relevant information about a company is spread as widely as possible, as quickly as possible. Stock prices represent a constantly shifting amalgamation of everyone’s information about and evaluations of a company’s value. It helps when those who to act so that stock prices reflect them.

Someone selling a stock because they know something will happen soon that will lower the stock’s value helps spread the knowledge that the price ought to be dropping. Such actions help ensure that stock prices do reflect a more That’s good for everyone in the stock market.

When contemplating insider-trading law, it helps to consider a far more widespread practice: “insider nontrading”—stock sales or purchases that would have been made, but aren’t because of inside knowledge. This is certainly happening every day, think to lock someone up for it.

Passage B One of the basic principles of the stock market is transparency. In a transparent market, information that influences trading decisions is available to all participants at the same time. Success in the market can then be gained only by skill in analyzing the information and making good investing decisions. In a good investment, and success is based on individual merit and skill.

In insider-trading situations, some people make investment decisions based on information that other people don’t have. People who don’t have access to the inside information can’t make similarly informed investment decisions. That unfairly compromises the market: people with inside information can make informed trade decisions far before other people to earn money in the stock market.

This, in turn, causes a loss of investor confidence and could ultimately destroy the market. People invest in the stock market because they believe they can make money. The whole point of capital investments is to make good investing decisions and make money over time. If investors believe they can’t make money, grow and be successful, and it could ultimately lead to widespread financial repercussions.

What this question is testing

Primary Purpose

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
14.

Both passages are primarily concerned with answering which one of the

Answer choices

  1. Trap3% picked this

    How is insider trading

  2. Trap1% picked this

    Should there be severer penalties for

  3. Trap1% picked this

    Why do investors engage in insider

  4. Correct93% picked this

    Is insider trading harmful to the

    Why this is right

    Answer D is correct.

    Skill tested: Primary Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  5. Trap1% picked this

    What is the best means of regulating

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