Most surefire tips for beating the stock market have short lives. They fizzle out as soon as people figure out that there is no magic formula for making money from stocks. But one concept has had a remarkable run: shadowing the trades of those who have the inside scoop on a company―its executives and directors. A small industry of publications and Web services has sprung up to track their required disclosures to the Securities & Exchange Commission since the late-1990s tech boom, when stock became a key part of executives' compensation. It was not lost on the market at large that many people got rich by investing in their own companies. And all the publicity about pre-scient selling by Enron Corp. brass before the energy com-pany's demise has given the idea a new push.
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