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Okay, suppose I start working a big order to buy GE. Each time a get a couple thousand shares, I deliver an uptick print - or a non-downtick print - to a paid central reporting system. Seeing my trade reports, another traders starts bidding up GE on Redi, real fast to where he can attract some sellers who expect a reversal. So these sellers accelerate, this scalper loads up, and then he offers them out to me. We are all coordinated by the tape, is this illegal?Suppose only traders on the floor, or on a trading desk can see my buy prints right away. Or suppose only a scalper at a unique location can see my prints. So, using his asymmetric information, he starts bidding on Redi, from other people who get my prints a hair later. By covering his shorts, and getting long, the scalper is coordinating to be selling, rather than buying, when I am buying. Is this illegal?Suppose I am a momentum trader in the e-mini S&P's. The market starts ticking up at the open, so I start loading up. At a certain point, I know breakout traders will come in and take the long off my hands. So, when the market rises by twice yesterday's range, I sell. Then, when I see a quick 6-point downdraft with a parabolic texture, I get long again - coordinating to buy when the breakout longs get stopped out, and then sell when they get stopped back in. They are trading the coarser texture for the larger move, I am acting as a tugboat, easing them in and out based on finer, shorter-term nuances. They count on me, without me saving their asses and making them indifferent, they couldn't make a profit. Is coordinating in this manner illegal?Now, suppose people buying big blocks delay their prints, so that they can pick people off in secret. Nobody has any idea who is buying and selling and when, and everybody loses track of their offsets. So we cut a deal IF you want to cross orders in NYSE stocks, THEN you must report your trades immediately. Is this illegal? Suppose instead of proferring and withholding exchange access or membership, we say we'll pay you 3 cents a share cash for reports. Either deal has measurable, sellable economic value. Is that illegal? Suppose, instead of collecting the 3 cents from everyone on Earth, we only collect it from NYSE members, and they see the prints first. Is that illegal?Suppose an underwriting syndicate gauges demand for a new offering. They get indications of interest, share their findings, and analyze after-market prices for recent new issues. Then, they coordinate, by deciding which offerings they will bring to market and which they will shelve, and to avoid independently bringing monster offerings to market on the same week. Is this illegal? Is it illegal if you know when another IPO is coming, to not attempt to place your own IPO on the exact same week?Now, suppose a group of traders on a pit all watch each other to see who is accumulating and where. People not in the pit can't see this. Suppose one trader has taken in 2,000 S&P's up to the highs. Suppose another trader predicts about 2,000 in paper coming in the next few minutes. Since his competitor is long 2000 already, he stands pat. He has coordinated his inventory with the paper flow and his competitor. Is this illegal?Now, suppose these same independent pit traders move off-floor and start trading electronically. Suppose they decide to keep sending the same indications of what they are doing to one another, to appear on one another's computer screen. Is this illegal?Now, suppose these same traders establish their own private crossing system like Instinet. They proffer access to this system in exchange for reporting their positions to one another in a timely fashion. If you say first that I'll sell if the rest of you guys get long 2,000, then you get to sell out to them first at the offer as they accumulate 2,000. Is that illegal?MPP.S. Suppose I establish a crossing network for accredited investors to trade positions in a handful of private companies on the Internet. Suppose I deliver a pitch to one of these investors, and then point out that another one of my investors is offering some of his shares out on the network at a price which I consider to be a bargain. I do, not at the same time, call up the investor offering his shares and explain why I think his offering price for my shares is a bargain. Is this illegal?