Man off wire

Obviously City journalists and PRs are buzzing with talk about the resignation of Neil Collins from Thomson Reuters, after the former Daily Telegraph City editor breached company rules about journalists writing about shares they own.

Three thoughts occur.

1. Is trading after you've written about a company really such a crime? Buying shares after most newspapers have tipped them up is a very fast way of losing money.

2. Anybody who has ever met Neil Collins will be pretty sure that he hasn't done anything really wrong (except, possibly, being a bit of an arse for giving the incoming Breaking Views regime an excuse to whack him).

3. NC should have followed his own Private Eye test.

NB: the SlackBelly blogging code of conduct necessitates that the author of this post must disclose that he owes his career to owning shares in Neil Collins.

Update: here's Hugo Dixon, the co-founder of Thomson Reuters's Breaking Views website, in an interview with the Guardian in January. "Recently I think we have been quite influential in the global debate on banking regulation. We may from time to time influence a share price on the day, one way or another, but it's more these bigger strategic things where we have an impact." So what's the fuss about, then?