When in doubt, do as the real crooks do.
TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
71–80 of 196 posts
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#72What percentage of total federal expenses should go towards the salaries of the people running the federal government?
How much is it now? There are 535 members of Congress and they each get about $200k. That means we are paying $107 million to run a government of ~$7.3 trillion.
In other words, about 1 thousandth of a percent of government costs goes to pay for the people doing the governing.
It just seems like maybe paying these people a lot more would reduce corruption and help them work better together as professionals.
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#73What percentage of total federal expenses should go towards the salaries of the people running the federal government? How much is it now? There are 535 members of Congress and they each get about $200k. That means we are paying $107 million to run a government of ~$7.3 trillion. In other words, about 1 thousandth of a percent of government costs goes to pay for the people doing the governing. It just seems like mayb…
In conjunction with eliminating their ability to trade, yes. Otherwise it will be like trickle-down economics-- they'll just use their higher salary to trade on even more inside information and make even more money.
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#74This 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.
This has basically been done, and is why people are interested in tracking trades. See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227378283_Abnormal_...
In fact, the idea of creating an ETF that tracks congressional trades in real time has also been floated: https://www.cnbc.com/2011/11/14/a-congressional-insider-trad...
The idea's a little half baked, of course.
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#75What percentage of total federal expenses should go towards the salaries of the people running the federal government? How much is it now? There are 535 members of Congress and they each get about $200k. That means we are paying $107 million to run a government of ~$7.3 trillion. In other words, about 1 thousandth of a percent of government costs goes to pay for the people doing the governing. It just seems like mayb…
It’s not the pay but the benefits they get and connections they make. IIRC, there was an article published few years ago analyzing how the net worth changed before, during and after being congressman. Pretty much everyone's networth increased significantly.
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#76Members 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…
The article has a quote from Nancy's team that says she does not personally own any stocks and that the transactions are made by her husband.
Barring congress from owning or trading stock would do nothing in this case. Barring congress and their direct family members from owning or trading stock would just mean that Nancy's cousin or good friend suddenly becomes a genius investor.
Insider trading is already illegal. It's just not being enforced here, or it's too difficult to prove. (Or maybe her husband really is just psychic!)
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#77This 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.
Still probably would have helped with buying pandemic stocks after that secret briefing congress got where they said everything would be alright and then bought stocks in zoom and whatnot.
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#78There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that members of congress outperform the market [0], let alone the sector that investments are made in. Aside from a few suspiciously timed trades (eg short sells just before the Pandemic), is there any strong evidence in favor of Congress outperforming the market?
[0]: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26975?utm_campaign=ntwh&utm_med...
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#79If I trade stocks with insider information I am criminal, if congress and the Fed does this, this is just normal behavior. Since nothing will change, I hope these TikTok kids make money with this strategy.
Re: TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
#80This 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.
This is also unlikely to work because Congress members don't do particularly well on trading. It's very hard to trade successfully, even with insider information its not entirely obvious what a stock price will do. It seems obvious because news media often reports ad-hoc analysis on a stock price movement. For instance, they'll say "Apple up 5% based on surprising App store revenue growth", but if it were to drop you may read a headline saying "Apple down 5% based on surprising drop in Mac sales". Sometimes I'll see an article touting the growth and only see it go back down by the time I get around to reading it.
I've analyzed the trades of US Senators during the early pandemic [0] and I was not convinced they performed abnormally. And the trade amounts were relatively small. I think they'd have an easier time trading real-estate due to the connections they have with various regulatory bodies and local governments.
[0] https://mleverything.substack.com/p/analyzing-us-senators-st...