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In the Texas Gulf Sulphur case, executives who traded on a major mineral discovery before the public announcement were liable not for having knowledge but for acting on material non-public information before it was disclosed. The violation is defined by the gap between private knowledge and public availability, not by the knowledge itself.
Haloid, a small firm, spent heavily for over a decade to develop the 914 copier and leased it per copy, which lowered adoption risk for customers. The product created a demand that prior market analysis could not detect.
Brooks treats markets and corporations as the product of individual temperaments, vanities, rivalries and miscommunications rather than abstract forces. Examples include Saunders's defiance, a GE manager's rationalizations, and floor traders' panics during the 1962 flash crash. Reading business through character shows that outcomes often depend on psychology and social pressure more than on the numbers.
Clarence Saunders bought up nearly all floating Piggly Wiggly stock to crush short sellers, then demanded delivery at prices he set. The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading and extended the delivery deadline, which let the shorts escape. Saunders won the squeeze on paper but lost everything, because the institution controlling settlement could change the rules mid-game to protect its own members.
In the GE electrical-equipment conspiracy, executives illegally fixed prices with competitors while the company formally forbade it. Brooks shows that orders passed down the hierarchy with deliberate ambiguity, and subordinates learned that official policy and actual expectation differed. That gap let senior leadership keep deniability while middle managers bore the legal consequences.