Insider trade on Splunk acquisition?

I don't know if this is genuinely suspicious or not. Is buying 20K of options an unusual thing? Or is this something that happens regularly with options expiring worthless or with a small gain - and it just happened to hit big this time?

IE "someone bought a lottery ticket and won" - interesting to know if they play the lottery every other day (and don't usually win?)

"short-dated out-of-the-money call options that cash out a day after a merger/acquisition" is, like, the definition of a suspicious transaction. Somebody's gonna get a knock on the door from the SEC.

Maybe unless that person was a US senator/congressperson.

If they obtained info about this through their role as a senator/congressperson, and not just through normal channels. If I understand it correctly:

Insider trading off of classified or whatever info they get from their senate/congress job - not illegal (though imo it should be illegal). (Edit: as mandevil points out, strictly speaking illegal, but largely uneforceable/unenforced)

Insider trading off of info they got from their buddy at XYZ place who knew about something ahead of time, unrelated to their senate/congress job - still illegal, same as for other people.

Why don’t people track the investments of senators and congresspeople and race to follow them? It seems like an easy way to get nearly insider trading.

Because:

> Trades executed by lawmakers or their families must be disclosed within 45 days of execution

Is probably an issue (it's it's actually insider trading).

People do track it, though:

https://www.capitoltrades.com/politicians