MarketWatch Execs’ Records Subpoenaed

The Securities and Exchange Commission has subpoenaed the personal stock-trading records of four executives at MarketWatch.com Inc. as part of the probe into former commentator Thom Calandra, who resigned in January, the company said Wednesday.

The subpoenas were sent Tuesday to MarketWatch Chief Executive Larry Kramer, Editor in Chief David Callaway, Chief Technology Officer Jamie Thingelstad and Executive Vice President Bill Bishop.

The San Francisco-based financial news and information provider believed the subpoenas were made as part of the SEC’s investigation into Calandra, a MarketWatch.com co-founder and its former chief commentator, a company spokesman said.

Calandra stepped down in January amid internal and SEC inquiries into his trading activities.

The SEC subpoenas, which were reported Tuesday by MarketWatch’s news service, CBS MarketWatch, asked for the executives’ trading records from March 2003 -- the date Calandra began writing the stock-picking newsletter Calandra Report -- to December 2003.

The company has no information that any of the executives traded on nonpublic information communicated by Calandra, the spokesman said.

David Bayless, outside counsel for MarketWatch.com, said the subpoenas were “a natural, expected extension” of the SEC’s investigation into Calandra’s trading activities.