How long after you leave a company can you buy their stock again?

[manlymatt83]

If you work for public company with employee trading blackout periods, how long afterwards must you have "left" in order to buy the stock?

 

[EagleKeeper]

What ever their rules state.

 

[vi edit]

Technically even if you leave you still are supposed to abide by the rules of insider trading. There is no window of time that applies to termination and using information to buy stock.

Blackout periods are usually done quarterly to prevent employees from making plays on earnings announcments or done during special announcments like mergers or spinoffs.

My former employer had a holding policy where I couldn't sell company stock for 6 months after buying. You also could not short the company stock. But I worked for not only a publicly traded company, but for one that was a stock broker as well. So they had extra special exemptions.

 

[bsobel]

If your talking on the open market, and not employee options its' really an issue between you and the SEC. If you were an insider with material information, you can't trade until such time as that information is made available publically (e.g. if you have earnigns information or M&A information and you leave before the event, your still have inside information and can't trade). Once any inside information you have is available to all or outdated (for example you thought they were going to buy company X, you quit, the deal never happens, at some reasonable point you can conclude the deal fell apart and is no longer inside information) you should be free to trade.

 

[DrPizza]

"Hey, did you hear, mjuszczak just quit"
"OMG! When the share holders hear about this, our company's stock is going to soar!"
"Yeah, I'm telling all my relatives to buy buy buy!"