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TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

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Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#51

Post by frellus »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
hpoe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So something you might find interesting there is a website out there https://senatestockwatcher.com/ that reports on the trades made by congress people and one of the things that was discovered is that many congress people have below or only slightly above returns on stock market trading. That being said as far as I know it is only trades they make so there may be ways around it but just an interesting point of data.

Is it legal for Members of Congress to pass tips on, to friends and relatives?

Technically, insider trading is defined by anyone trading on or passing non-public knowledge to an "outsider".

So, yes.. if a Congress member passed along material information to someone that they traded on, both should get prosecuted. I'm not sure I've seen it happen to politicians in my lifetime, but totally should.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#52

Post by uoaei »

0xFreebie wrote: post #49
subsubzero wrote: post #20

Members of congress should not own or trade stock, full stop. I am so surprised that this is even legal, it gives an extremely unfair advantage to congress as they have inside info on military contracts, lawsuits and if govt. agencies initiate investigations into companies. You want to end corruption in politics(well make it less corrupt) then barring congress from owning and trading stocks and other related securiti…

It's more complicated than that. If you prohibit stock ownership, they will cheat with every other asset class. (Real estate deals are easy too). If you prohibit all asset classes, it means only poor people can run for office - so they give inside tips instead to their brother, son, or campaign donors while maintaining a laughable illusion of poverty. It's a tougher problem than it appears to be.

How do other countries contend with these issues? America is not the be-all, end-all, and your comment seems to imply that this problem has never been wrestled with except hypothetically.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#53

Post by Cryptonic »

babesh wrote: post #28
Cryptonic wrote: post #3

Everybody made huge stock gains in the last year, it was hard work to fuck up in that market. It's not a hint for inside knowledge if you ask me and not a guarantee for future gains to follow another ones portfolio.

You must not remember those Congress people who traded in stocks after COVID-19 briefings. Wonder if you find that ok. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_congressional_insider_t...

I know. It's not ok. I'm not saying that having insights like that not giving an unfair advantage. Actually in my oppinion it's inside trading and and I cannot understand why there have been no consequences.

But I was only referring to the last year (12 month).

My personal portfolio had about 40% drawdown March and April 2020. It's back up 110%+ of pre corvid since then. And I have no insight knowledge at all, just a few tech stock picks (thank you Tesla and Google) and a foundation of MSCI World ESG ETF... crazy times.

Fun fact, I even managed to loose some Money with GameStop and AMC, so I'm really bad at it.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#54

Post by yunohn »

hpoe wrote: post #39
subsubzero wrote: post #20

Members of congress should not own or trade stock, full stop. I am so surprised that this is even legal, it gives an extremely unfair advantage to congress as they have inside info on military contracts, lawsuits and if govt. agencies initiate investigations into companies. You want to end corruption in politics(well make it less corrupt) then barring congress from owning and trading stocks and other related securiti…

So something you might find interesting there is a website out there https://senatestockwatcher.com/ that reports on the trades made by congress people and one of the things that was discovered is that many congress people have below or only slightly above returns on stock market trading. That being said as far as I know it is only trades they make so there may be ways around it but just an interesting point of data.

> many congress people have below or only slightly above returns on stock market trading

This is an assumption unsupported by the data or this website.

We do not have accurate position details, nor exact dates and times for the trades, to understand their earnings. Further, Congress members only provide ranges of values for the trades they make, with a significant reporting delay.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#55

Post by wolverine876 »

daveslash wrote: post #27

I love that this links to text.npr.org . Another text-only news site is lite.cnn.com.

It's an underappreciated genre:

News Aggregators

http://68k.news - The best I've found. I don't know why it's not better known, but I found it by luck and don't know who is doing it.

https://f6oclock.com - seems to load stories in Outline.com. Serious real news, but I don't know how they are chosen or who is doing it.

---

Publications

https://nytimes.com/timeswire - chronological feed

https://guardian.gyford.com - Phil Gyford's interesting project; has the Guardian. Navigate to next/previous article by swiping, using arrow keys, h/l, a/d.

https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/text/textedition - Christian Science Monitor (an excellent publication), though they could use an easier-to-type-and-remember URL

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#56

Post by ceejayoz »

olivermarks wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it legal for Members of Congress to pass tips on, to friends and relatives?

The 2012 stock act supposedly stopped this https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/2018/08/16/can-member... Nancy Pelosi's (net worth $112m) recent financial activities with Emhoff make me very dubious about this. https://fortune.com/2021/07/08/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-hu... etc etc

> Nancy Pelosi's (net worth $112m)

Significant portions of that are due to her being married to a venture capitalist and real estate investor.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#57

Post by UnpossibleJim »

brundolf wrote: post #4

I'm not a market expert, but... my gut tells me this would have some kind of corrective effect, wouldn't it? Amplifying the inside information, allowing others to capitalize on it, would even out the unfairness of the privileged position in some roundabout way, wouldn't it? Obviously scaled by the number of people actually doing this, and with how much money Or- would it have the opposite effect? Would it actually gi…

Yes, but it's also a form of "crowd sourced insider trading" around a person who won't be indicted, as they aren't part of the scheme... so far as I can tell. It's a loophole because no law has been written about it, as of yet.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#58

Post by 0xFreebie »

uoaei wrote: post #52
0xFreebie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more complicated than that. If you prohibit stock ownership, they will cheat with every other asset class. (Real estate deals are easy too). If you prohibit all asset classes, it means only poor people can run for office - so they give inside tips instead to their brother, son, or campaign donors while maintaining a laughable illusion of poverty. It's a tougher problem than it appears to be.

How do other countries contend with these issues? America is not the be-all, end-all, and your comment seems to imply that this problem has never been wrestled with except hypothetically.

That's a good question. I know my comment sounds defeatist. Another commenter suggested requiring trades be announced in advance. Sometimes blind-trusts are used, but there's not much to show they make a difference. Opening up hearings and Congressional communications helps. Honestly it's a tough problem.

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#59

Post by wolverine876 »

DantesKite wrote: post #12

> "We don't want this to ... be a left vs. right thing. We don't really care. We just want to make money," he said. You know what? That's a great idea. I love it. Also didn't know husbands and wives in Congress had to disclose which stocks they bought because of the Stock Act. Very cool.

We don't care about corruption? How modern. /s

Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do

#60

Post by CharlieMunger »

mrjivraj wrote: post #43

https://www.cnbc.com/id/218.html This reminds me of a study which showed that even if you bought the same stocks a month after Buffett and his holding company Berkshire Hathaway disclosed their own purchases, you'd still be way ahead of the game. "The market ... appears to under-react to the news of a Berkshire stock investment since a hypothetical portfolio that mimics Berkshire's investments created the month after…

There's a community on Reddit that studies Berkshire's purchases (investments made by Buffett/Weschler/Combs) and tries to follow, purchasing only below what Berkshire paid:

https://old.reddit.com/r/brkb/

For example, in 2020 and early 2021 Berkshire paid $59 for Verizon, buying $9 billion worth (a huge Buffett/Weschler telecom investment). Verizon now trades at about $54, so this community is buying.

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