When a person on the inside of a corporation who has special knowledge of its workings that is not known to the public uses this private information to acquire profits or avoid losses in making market trades. The most common examples include trading by corporate officers, directors or employees based upon their confidential and privileged knowledge that is not public, e.g. buying a stock in anticipation of a news release that will made public in ten days about the corporation making an unusually large profit for the year.