The never ending question. According to article 7 MAR, inside information shall comprise
“information of a precise nature, which has not been made public, relating, directly or indirectly, to one or more issuers or to one or more financial instruments, and which, if it were made public, would be likely to have a significant effect on the prices of those financial instruments or on the price of related derivative financial instruments”.
It is important to distinguish between such information that is secret and information that can be considered as price-sensitive information. Information is likely to have a significant effect on the prices if a “reasonable investor” would be likely to use it as part of the basis of its investment decisions. Unfortunately, there are no official limits or benchmarks saying that the share price must be expected to increase by X% or that the order must be of Y% of the turnover, rather, what constitutes inside information must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In evaluating what may constitute inside information, the following factors may be considered:
(i) the expected extent or importance of the decision, fact or circumstance compared to the company’s activities as whole;
(ii) the relevance of the information as regards the main determinants of the price of the company’s financial instruments; or
(iii) all other market variables that may affect the price of the financial instruments.
Read more in Nasdaq Guidelines, especially paragraphs 1.1, 1.7 and 1.18.