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Imagine that Alice's net worth is an even billion dollars. Alice buys a tiny stake, $1000 or so, in ACME Industries. This is financially immaterial to Alice. It's 0.0001% of her net worth. But the purchase gives her access to all of the information which must be legally shared with investors, and is a common way investors keep tabs on publicly-traded companies.

Now, imagine that Bob's net worth is $10,000. Alice's investment is equivalent to Bob investing a single penny in ACME Industries.

The headline "Alice and Bob establish a small financial interest in ACME Industries" might be technically true in the most stringent sense, but it doesn't really align with how the phrase "financial interest" is used in common speech.

It's not even relevant information about either Alice or Bob.

This is one of those things that barely skates along the line of honesty. It's like a company that says "We Don't Sell Your Data!" in large type with a tiny asterisk on the end. When you read the fine print attached to said asterisk, there are all kinds of exceptions for "trusted partners" and "quality assurance". To all intents and purposes, that company does, in fact, sell your data.

This just isn't how you establish or maintain trust.



>But the purchase gives her access to all of the information which must be legally shared with investors...publicly-traded companies.

Publicly traded companies must share this information with the public.


Not all of it. As a shareholder, you get access to shareholder meetings (not public), can vote on certain issues raised by the board, etc.


I don’t know. The term “small” made it sound — small. You can argue the other points of the article, but this doesn’t seem like a real mischaracterization.




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