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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

#61

Post by mLuby »

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…

While we're dreaming… serving officials (and anyone they can't be compelled to testify against) should have to, before taking office:

  1. Disclose their income and assets, and keep doing so each year while in office
  2a. Put all their liquid assets* into a blind trust, or better yet
  2b. Put all their liquid assets* into an index that tracks our economy (not just The Market)
* Minus reasonable living expenses—we wouldn't want them to go hungry, now would we?

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

#63

Post by lucb1e »

not2b wrote: post #21

This is unlikely to work because of the timing delay. Suppose a member of Congress has access to inside information and trades on it. They have 45 days to disclose the trade. By the time the trade is disclosed, the market has already moved: if Pelosi or McConnell or whoever bought low so they could sell high, a month later the increase is probably already baked in.

Do they have to disclose when they bought it, regardless of when they publish it in those 45 days? Because that would make for an incredibly interesting backwards-calculated index fund. Probably someone has already done this but I wouldn't know what to search for.

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

#64

Post by nineplay »

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…

I can't imagine how we could prevent a duly elected representative of a congressional district from being sworn in if they refuse to sell their stock portfolio. It would amount to disenfranchisement.

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

#66

Post by 88913527 »

not2b wrote: post #21

This is unlikely to work because of the timing delay. Suppose a member of Congress has access to inside information and trades on it. They have 45 days to disclose the trade. By the time the trade is disclosed, the market has already moved: if Pelosi or McConnell or whoever bought low so they could sell high, a month later the increase is probably already baked in.

It's nothing traditionally groundbreaking, either. Most of them are buying blue-chip tech stocks. Anyone mildly paying attention has known how well FANGs have done in the past decade. There isn't much to learn from these trades.

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

#67

Post by User23 »

mLuby wrote: post #61
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…

While we're dreaming… serving officials (and anyone they can't be compelled to testify against) should have to, before taking office: 1. Disclose their income and assets, and keep doing so each year while in office 2a. Put all their liquid assets* into a blind trust, or better yet 2b. Put all their liquid assets* into an index that tracks our economy (not just The Market) * Minus reasonable living expenses—we wouldn'…

It really doesn't matter. They're puppets anyhow and this, along with the sweetheart sinecures at banks, drug companies, etc, are just compensation for being figureheads.

Think about it, people that are signing off on trillion dollar checks are only getting million dollar kickbacks. They're not in charge. It's literally an order 1/10^6 cut.

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

#68

Post by drewcoo »

Humans are filthy creatures. So wherever they live, they attract rats. Rats who are seen as a filthy problem to the humans so they kill the rats.

Any bets how long until Congress makes it illegal to follow their stock moves because following them is "insider trading?"

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

#69

Post by olivermarks »

ceejayoz wrote: post #56
olivermarks wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They make a great team.

Separately I mixed up Paul Pelosi with Emhoff, Kamala Harris's current husband.

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

#70

Post by cmelbye »

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…

It certainly seems to be raising awareness of the problem. In terms of making insider trading fair, I think that is inherently impossible.
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