so let’s say a well known activist investor, say carl icahn, is known to cause a boost in the stock price when he takes a stake. he holds both passive and active minority stakes (NOT tender offers), but is generally an activist, and stocks tend to move up meaningfully if it’s perceived that he’s involved. is it a violation if: 1) you overhear icahn at a restaurant telling one of his employees he’s about to buy an 8% stake in company XYZ 2) icahn is your friend and he tells you in a meeting he has done 3 months of work on company xyz and thinks theres a lot of value (but doesnt tell you hes going to buy) 3) icahn tells you he’s going to buy an 8% position in XYZ the underlying premise of the question is - what constitutes market moving info? if you substitute “icahn” and “buy a stake” with “WSJ reporter” and “write a positive article”, is it different?
CFAI vol 1 pg 49 info is material if it’s disclosure would probably have an impact on the price of a security or if reasonable investors would want to know the info before making a decision. note none of your options are violations anyway because you only violate when you act on m n-p info.