Sure there are some important details missed in the story, but I really don't like how fuzzy the line is. It's not like you usually buy the stuff from the manufacturer, the whole world of trading is built on the ability to buy cheap and to sell under the conditions where the price can be (always somewhat artificially) made higher. It's what the resellers do, it's the "free market". Yet when a man manages to predict that the demand (and hence the price) of hand sanitizer will rise during the time of pandemic and to "stockpile" some measly 17 700 bottles of it — he can be prosecuted for that. And I mean, seriously, 17 700 bottles is peanuts, it's not like he was short selling US$10 billion worth of pounds sterling during the time of financial collapse (which he majorly contributed to).