if you're not a high ranking officer on the corporate ladder I don't think it's a problem. However, try not to tell other people about it, or else people might see it as a conflict of interest.
He may also make a few enemies at work. Think about, if the CEO, President, Vice President, CFO, regional manager, office manager or whatever was giving a meeting while knowing some of the employees next to himself (herself) have been shorting the stock...they won't forget his face and it may become a hidden issue at a later date for example in promotion situations.
I am sure because I have done it before and not once and twice but over 1000 times. Shorted stocks, traded different strategies on options in the company that I used to work and nothing happened and their policy was we could not short it but we could buy as much as we wanted !!. Many people were doing that. I even went one step further and I remember once I called Fidelity and said I want to short XXXX more and he said where do I work and I said in XXXX and he asked " you are working in XXXX and want to short XXXX ?" and I said yes and I did it and nothing happened. A few years later our CEO had to settle his own issue with securities for 1.5M . All things said, I should say you are NOT wrong. If one wants to be 100% correct, then he should not do it . Unless when you short it the stock drops 2% because you shorted it, it really does not matter. By the way these are my rules. I believe if a company wants to fire you, they will find a reason to do that but if otherwise, that really does not matter.
No need to ask HR. There are restrictions and rules. You should just do it and not ask. The size of your trade is nothing that might affect the stock.
Take a look at this guy's posts. He primarily picks fights with people but he really doesn't have experience in the financial industry. He is a disillusioned IT guy who thinks he knows something about Finance. He tries to prove expertise in any domain thru over aggressive behavior.
I don’t like this guy as well, but it is true that if you are considered an “investment professional” in a financial services firm, you are required to follow many personal trading rules. For example, I have to get approval before entering into any single stock transaction, and there is a minimum holding period.
You are not understanding OP's question at all then. What you got away with has nothing whatsoever to do with what is permissible and what not. If you work for a financial firm and do not declare your equity trades for preclearing you are acting outright illegally and if found out you will be immediately dismissed (fired) and at worst can wave your career in finance good bye. And at worst you might have an inquiry or outright lawsuit up your ass. What if you shorted the stock or bought put options and a day or week later your firm declares it's quarterly earning and the stop tanks 20-30%. Trust me that you will be in deep deep shit and no lawyer in the world will be able to help you. You are giving outright shady advise.
No wonder this world is what it is with people like you. I hope you don't work at a company I buy products from.
Not sure you are talking about OP or me but fact is you give shit advise here as well. No surprise. You are advocating actions that may land OP in deep trouble.
He would also be getting disclosure agreements about once every quarter. The fact that he doesn't know is that he will likely have no legal exposure.