I thought Cohen was sitting at his desk trading eminis based on innate feel. Lol. Not really. "Cohenâs natural ability as a tape reader has been a big part of his success, former employees say. In addition to trading his own stocks and overseeing 300 managers, analysts and traders globally, Cohen buys and sells âminis,â says one former employee. âMiniâ is short for a security called the S&P 500 E-mini future, an electronically traded derivative that rises and falls with the Standard & Poorâs 500 Index and is sold in smaller units than other index futures. âMiniâ Trading âHe does that all day, every day, completely intuitively,â the former employee says." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-02-26/steve-cohen-s-trade-secrets.html
One of the people interviewed, Turney Duff, wrote a great book with some insight into Galleon called The Buyside, I highly recommend it.
Even if Steven Cohen is guilty of insider trading, let's not act like he's been trading off of inside information his whole trading career. Sounds to me like propaganda to convince people that you can't be successful at trading unless you're an insider. But if you're thinking logically, you'd be mindful of the fact that these guys were successful traders before making it to a level where they'd even be able to obtain inside information.