Wow. I left a company a few years ago that was doing this. It caused money to rain down on the employees that participated (I was one of them) but it sounded like something that was completely up to the company to do if they wanted, and certainly not illegal. We had to undergo repeated lectures and training on insider trading. I do have to admit that employees were buying because it was low and they knew that certain new services were going to be released and the ensuing news would drive the stock price up. It did, and let's just say quite a few people got some windfall from the temporary bump in price. Easy double-your-money. I felt like this was insider trading but everyone was doing it so I must be wrong.