A work-from-home tip: Don’t buy stocks after eavesdropping on your spouse’s business calls WSB-TV Channel 2 [Video]

HOUSTON — (AP) — A word to the wise: If you overhear your work-from-home spouse talking business, just forget anything you may learn from it. And most definitely do not trade stocks using what authorities will almost certainly view as inside information.

Tyler Loudon, a 42-year-old Houston man, learned this lesson the hard way. He pleaded guilty Thursday to securities fraud for buying and selling stocks based on details gleaned from his wife’s business conversations while both were working from home. He made $1.7 million in profits from the deal, but has agreed to forfeit those gains.

Things might have turned out differently had Loudon or his wife decided to work from, well, the office.

Loudon’s wife worked as a mergers and acquisition manager at the London-based oil and gas conglomerate BP. So when Loudon overheard details of a BP plan to acquire a truck stop and travel center company based in Ohio, he smelled profit. …