COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
EXPLORING 21st CENTURY SKILLS and ISSUES
Name: _____________________________________________________________________________
Side Trip to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
The Stock Market Crash of 1929 wiped out many investors, leaving financial devastation in its wake. The American public lost confidence in the stock market. President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that a thriving stock market is essential to a healthy economy because it enables companies to raise capital to grow, employ workers, and innovate. He believed that to restore confidence and coax people back to investing in stocks, the market needed government oversight in order to prevent the kind of problems that lead to the crash. The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 created the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”.) Your job: Go to the SEC website at www.sec.gov and answer the following questions: 1. What is the stated mission of the SEC? (Select About on the menu bar, then What We Do. ) _ ______________________________________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________________________________ 2. Who was the first SEC Commissioner, and who was his famous son? (Select About on the menu bar, then What We Do .) _ ______________________________________________________________________________ 3. According to SEC, what is “insider trading?” In your own words, what do you think that means? What does material mean? Is it a crime? (Select About on the menu bar, then Securities Laws .) _ ______________________________________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________________________________ Protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation . Insider trading is when a person in possession of material (that means important or significant) nonpublic information trades a security in violation of a duty to withhold the information or refrain from trading. When someone inside or outside the company has access to private information affecting the value of the shares, and buys or sells shares based on that information . It is a crime . Joseph P. Kennedy; President John F. Kennedy PRODUCT PREVIEW
Lesson 14 | Who Put the Wall in Wall Street? 272
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