Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress • Hacker News Board

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#231

Post by tzs » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

sakopov wrote: post #15

> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…

I don't know about the Gottheimer example, but their Pelosi example seems pretty far fetched.

First of all, Congress passed a stimulus bill on Dec 21, the day before her husband bought those calls. Any 5% gain over the next couple of days or so is for more likely in response to that, and in anticipation of Trump signing the bill soon, than it due to Pelosi changing her mind about some possible future stimulus that hasn't even started being negotiated yet.

Second, the 5% "rally" for AAPL only lasted a week. TSLA's rise lasted longer, but it was rising before this. The article doesn't say anything about whether or not they actually exercised their options to buy the stock, and then sold it to actually profit. If they didn't, then this "rally" had no real effect on them.

Third, looking at other tech stocks, GOOG pretty much did nothing around or for a while after Dec 22. AMZN fell for a day or two, spiked up, came back to around what it was. FB was kind of like AMZN, but the spike was smaller and the fall was deeper. Looking beyond tech stocks, the Dow and the S&P 500 don't show anything happening around the time. Most things continued the trends they had been on before.

That suggests that Pelosi's change of heart about possible future stimulus bills didn't have much effect on most stocks. So why did they buy AAPL and TSLA? Even if they thought there would be an effect and wanted to exploit it, buying TSLA to do so makes no sense. AAPL makes a little more sense, but not much. AMZN or some other company whose products people would actually likely spend stimulus money on would make more sense.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#232

Post by RhodoGSA » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

thepete2 wrote: post #135

One thing I've always wondered: Does the stock market basically consist of insider traders making a profit off of people without that knowledge? I feel like even with immense restrictions on insiders in place, information is so easy to pass on to sb. else, that it should be impossible to prevent this. Heck, I could cough once for buy, twice for sell. Who's going to surveil me and notice that?

for that matter, day trading and technical analysis is literally just insider trading. This chart, based on some analysis of the way it's moved, with no interest in the metrics of the company itself, dictates buy or sell. Every 'Technical Trader' learns these 'indicators' and trades on them. It's just shadow insider trading under the guise of providing 'liquidity' but in reality just contributes to more volatility.

Back when the stock market was founded, it was meant as a means of providing a signal of support for a company. It allowed the company to raise debt or financing based on it's stock price or signal of support. You bought company stock because you believed in the fundamentals of the business and you wanted to support it. Now it's just about how i can sell this stock to the bigger sucker, for more money than i bought it for.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#233

Post by gnopgnip » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #9

The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it. How do you change this? No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?

Congress already passed the STOCK act, that is why these disclosures are required, and partially why this kind of securities fraud is illegal. It is the job of the SEC, and the justice dept to enforce this

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#234

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #109

giantg2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it." Welcome to the system. This is pervasive in many other aspects as well (court, police, DA, etc).

Checks and balances are supposed to address this issue. I think the only one which really does the job here would be the right to initiative/referendum. That or an electoral solution, but that one's really hard since new legislators will be incentivized to maintain the status quo. You would almost need a new party defined around that one issue, which is hard to imagine in the US. Maybe an executive order could also p…

"Maybe an executive order could also prohibit this?"

I don't think this will help. I feel that executive orders are misused and abused today. They are really only only supposed to be executive guidance on how to enforce or implement a law. Instead they are being used as redefining law or even ignoring them.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#235

Post by gowld » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #229

akudha wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Pelosi worth like 100 million or something? How much money is enough for these people? :( How quickly are these trades made public? Maybe we should just copy the congress people's trades and make some profit ourselves :P

> How much money is enough for these people? :( What kind of attitude is that? If you have savings, one seeks a return on said savings by investing them. That's perfectly normal and rational behavior at all wealth levels.

"normal and rational" is different from "ethical or moral".

"All wealth levels" are not the same.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#236

Post by frankfrankfrank » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

slowmovintarget wrote: post #191

nitrogen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We only need to find 0.00013% of the US population Maybe we should use sortition then instead of elections? What could be more democratic than random average people (meeting some criteria) taking a turn at the wheel?

A significant percentage of random average people have no practical understanding of economics, and no ability to think of consequences to policy. Granted, neither do a significant percentage of the currently serving congress if current policy is anything to go by.

Regardless of whether one may like the initial selection criteria or not, what you describe is precisely why the country (USA) was supposed to be led by land owning free white men. The assumption being that people that fit that criteria, plausibly possessed a requisite initial selection criteria set of skills and knowledge that would constitute the pool of best qualified people to run a government in the common interest. From that pool of people their peers would further select amongst each other using those very same abilities, knowledge, skills, and capacities to further choose the utmost best person to lead.

I realize that just saying that may cause some consternation among some, but it is objectively the best selection system one could possibly devise, for any people anywhere, regardless of whether people like it or not.

It's not even a selection system that is not used all over the place from choices within your family where there are certain prerequisites like being an adult or a parent or having to be a member of the union in order to vote on union matters, or having achieved certain certifications and qualifications before you can make decisions about building a highway bridge.

It is and has not been a net benefit to any of us that "democracy" was first imposed and then expanded when the founders of the USA were very explicit about the fact that democracy was a recipe for disaster and would invariably cause destruction … as it has. Personally, I would very much have been ok with benefitting from properly qualified people making decision for me that I have no competent capacity to make for myself, rather than having lived in a society where everyone thinks they are equally smart and competent and my vote counts the same as some fool who does not know that a week is seven days (something I heard someone in her early 20s say yesterday. She thought the week excludes the weekend)

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#237

Post by adamrezich » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #208

sakopov wrote: post #15

> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…

Re. the Gottheimer trading; if one is to believe the reports of his net worth based on public records [1][2], he supposedly almost tripled his wealth in just one year. That seems quite unusual. The fact that he appears to trade mostly $MSFT while also being a former MSFT Executive and seems to be extremely accurate in his options trading of that $MSFT, only really adds to the extreme suspiciousness. Is there no entit…

> Is there no entity that even just tries to keep tabs on or possibly investigates these people, let alone charge them with crimes where appropriate?

well there's this thing called the IRS that seems to spend most of their time auditing random citizens when the numbers they submit on their tax forms doesn't match the numbers the IRS already calculated on their side. maybe we could streamline that absolutely ridiculous process & their efforts could be used elsewhere

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#238

Post by gowld » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

koube wrote: post #214

lordnacho wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want her to not speculate on the event, it looks bad. The system doesn't just depend on people not cheating, it depends on confidence in the system, judged by people who aren't experts in either trading or politics.

What did she do here that constitutes speculation? All she did was push for the highest stimulus she could get.

Her husband, who is her legal business partner, should not be trading at all. It's just that simple. They should buy long-term bonds.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#239

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

slowmovintarget wrote: post #191

nitrogen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We only need to find 0.00013% of the US population Maybe we should use sortition then instead of elections? What could be more democratic than random average people (meeting some criteria) taking a turn at the wheel?

A significant percentage of random average people have no practical understanding of economics, and no ability to think of consequences to policy. Granted, neither do a significant percentage of the currently serving congress if current policy is anything to go by.

What about both?

Take the existing system and have the house and Senate argue every official act to the sortition for a vote. How would this be worse than the current crony capitalism we suffer under?

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#240

Post by gowld » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #9

The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it. How do you change this? No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?

Use the 4 boxes of Liberty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty