A corporate officers’ main job is to maximize the value of his corporation’s stock. Additionally, most corporate officers own many shares of their corporation’s stock. Generally, an officer lies either because he is doing a bad job, and he lies to keep his job, or he lies because he wants to keep the price of the stock high long enough for him to sell his own shares at a high price. The practice of a corporate officer lying to keep the value of his corporation’s stock artificially high, and then selling his personal portfolio of stock at its inflated value is commonly called “insider trading.”
