This appears to have been quite a thing.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA): https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly-loeffler-dumped-mill...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): https://twitter.com/justinmclachlan/status/12408449876143882...
Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#32Smart guy. I'd be about 30% richer today if I did the same.
No you wouldn't. Everyone would be in your boat. He has info you did not which is how he did it. It's not smart. It's just unscrupulous. It may also turn out to be really, really dumb. At least I hope so.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#33This seems like a witch hunt for what is a conflict of interest.
Either you have certain roles, i.e. members of congress, that can't hold shares at all. Or you allow them to trade and then only go after very specific insider trades. I.e. at a business to business level.
But going after an individual for "knowing" how the entire economy will move is a stretch imo.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#34This reminds me of Matt Levine's column from 16 March [0]
"Is the coronavirus securities fraud?
I wrote on Friday that, because everything is securities fraud, the novel coronavirus is securities fraud"
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/market...
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#35This seems like a witch hunt for what is a conflict of interest. Either you have certain roles, i.e. members of congress, that can't hold shares at all. Or you allow them to trade and then only go after very specific insider trades. I.e. at a business to business level. But going after an individual for "knowing" how the entire economy will move is a stretch imo.
Or you don't try to frame this as a false choice line you did here - and you prosecute people listening to classified briefings and then immediately illegally trading and benefiting from it.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#36This seems like a witch hunt for what is a conflict of interest. Either you have certain roles, i.e. members of congress, that can't hold shares at all. Or you allow them to trade and then only go after very specific insider trades. I.e. at a business to business level. But going after an individual for "knowing" how the entire economy will move is a stretch imo.
Every company has already figured out policies to avoid accusations of impropriety.
Its a solved problem.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#37I might be missing something here, but how does the knowledge pandemic and about the severity of the disease about qualify as insider information? I guess this guy can be accused of not expressing his real beliefs to the public (to contain the panic as he would surely argue), but that is not the same as insider trading.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe congress is exempt from insider trading laws. Edit: looks like I was wrong. Thanks for the links.
According to the STOCK Act of 2012 [0], members of Congress are not exempt from insider trading laws. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act
And check out the only 3 senators that voted against the stock act... that's right, this guy is on of them.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#39I might be missing something here, but how does the knowledge pandemic and about the severity of the disease about qualify as insider information? I guess this guy can be accused of not expressing his real beliefs to the public (to contain the panic as he would surely argue), but that is not the same as insider trading.
He did express his concerns about the economy to a small group of donors. He also was one of only 3 senators to vote against the stock act, making things like this illegal.
Re: Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19
#40Smart guy. I'd be about 30% richer today if I did the same.
No you wouldn't. Everyone would be in your boat. He has info you did not which is how he did it. It's not smart. It's just unscrupulous. It may also turn out to be really, really dumb. At least I hope so.
He can buy back in at a lower level and probably double his gains. You can't say he made a bad decision.