Fair trading - The ethics of trading in financial markets.

Social norms, including rules of fairness, are rules of behavior enforced by the community that often make their way into law. Community rules of fairness in financial trading are important to everyone, but they are especially important to investors, to executives, to investment professionals, to students who plan to become executives or investment professionals, and to regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. Surveys of both investment professionals and students illuminate some rules of fairness. Rules of fairness are found to allow a trader to gain advantage over another with information obtained with research, skill, or even luck, but not to gain advantage with inside information that other traders cannot obtain with research or skill. Rules of fairness place special burdens on traders who are relatively well-off and traders who have sure information. Rules of fairness for trading stock are different from rules of fairness for trading other goods such as automobiles, and investment professionals and students perceive rules of fairness differently.