You Have the Duty to Remain Silent…

Jay Hancock describes an unintended effect of the Security and Exchange Commission's "fair disclosure" regulation. It was meant to "cut down on leaks of corporate tidbits to Wall Street analysts, big shareholders and other people likely to trade on the information." But it has also left executives frightened to talk to ordinary reporters—or just given them an excuse to clam up. The SEC, Hancock writes,

should revisit the matter of whether Regulation FD is properly understood. When the rules came out, the agency worried about a "chilling effect" on the flow of information, with a "cost to overall market efficiency and capital formation."

The chill is here. Let's turn up the thermostat and open up the conversation.