Yeah sure... what I do on my own time is none of anyone's business... You're basically saying the company you work for can impose rules on say what gym you go to? Or whether you play soccer or baseball, or none at all... If I do my trades during my own time , they cannot impose restrictions on that, unless it's against the (insider-trading) law.
Yep, show me the law that says they can't? You don't have to work for a given company, and one that arbitrarily restricted you from doing things would find themselves at the bottom of the talent heap pretty rapidly, but nothing's stopping them. In fact, many pro athletes do have restrictions that prohibited them from playing pickup basketball games, for example, in order to prevent injuries, to your specific example. That's pretty similar to telling a finance professional they can't trade on the side, come to think of it.
Sure they can. For example, you are a software engineer. On the weekends you write a program. The company technically owns it. This has been held up in court. If you work for a FINRA firm, your trading is restricted. They monitor your trading to 1. ensure you don't trade on insider trading (against their own black lists and grey lists) and 2. you are focused on making money for the firm and not just your own account. I've heard that Partners at Goldman are required to use the firms accounting dept for their personal tax returns. This is probably so some partner doesn't end up in the headlines for tax evasion. And if you are in a certain professions, they might prevent you from doing other activities. Many executives have clauses in their contracts that they can't go skydiving, etc. It's not debatable. This is how the world works. If you don't like it, then don't work for one of the firms that engage in this practice. There's a reason companies don't put onerous rules in place. It will detract good people from joining but they will put rules that affect their business.
Yeah duh.. I've said that before, if you're in a financial firm... you'll probably be restricted depending on what your job is. Similar for software, if your building software on your own with company assets (even your own brain). Same with sports... if you're being paid 10 mln yearly and you run the risk of tearing something because you decide to go ski-ing... totally acceptable to impose restrictions. You show me which non-financial company imposes restrictions across the board on trading in your own time with your own money... Maybe, just maybe... a high profile CEO has restrictions like that, but that's merely because he/she would have connections everywhere and any trading could be considered insider trading and reflect negatively on the company. But then again, they're paid very decent sums of money each year... but we're mainly talking about the normal guy aren't we?
Consulting firms and law firms have rules against personal trading. Most operating firms don't have such rules.