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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

#161

Post by rndgermandude »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #72

What 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…

A government is a lot bigger than elected officials. The US federal government has more than 1 million employed people, and a lot of them work in positions that are vulnerable to large scale or at least mid scale corruption attempts.

If I was using bribes and "lobbyist gifts" and similar to push an agenda, I wouldn't just go after the elected officials, I would concentrate on going after the people who work for them, to be honest.

>In Fiscal Year 2017 (FY 2017), the largest 24 federal agencies - known as CFO Act Agencies* - obligated a total of $115 billion in personnel compensation.

https://datalab.usaspending.gov/federal-employees/

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

#162

Post by fighterpilot »

codyswann wrote: post #113
noxer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats just a "legal scam" and you know because if they would actually be successful trading they would not bother selling newsletters.

It is a scam and the same scam happens with sports betting, but it's a bit more nuanced than that. Trader A buys a 50,000 person email list. Sends 25,000 an alert that XYZ is going through the roof Sends 25,000 an alert that XYZ is going through the floor If XYZ stays flat, he repeats the process a bit later. Whichever side loses is eliminated. He repeats the process with 12,500 on each side of the position (more bec…

Usually the scam is just a pure pump & dump with no sophistication: Trader A sends 50,000 an alert that small-cap XYZ is going through the roof, then XYZ really does go through the roof because a large subset of 50,000 people buy it at the same time.

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

#163

Post by hogFeast »

Ekaros wrote: post #151
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly 9 out of 10 hedge funds fail to beat the market or simple passive strategies indexed to it. I'm no fan of Pelosi personally, but observing her husbands performance isn't smoking gun evidence, it's just banal. Also, consider that a lot of what hedge funds offer is bespoke risk profiles to high net wealth individuals that are overexposed to particular market sectors.

I think this has probably been one of the worst times to compared hedge fund performance to other strategies. Let's see if the corrections happen for real and then calculate those returns. After all market was or is at all time high.

We have already seen it. In 2020, you saw macro funds (the ones often targeted for "underperforming") that were running max drawdowns of 5% make 20%, 30%, 40% in a few months.

The issue, as you imply, is that in a bull market people lose almost all ability to exercise reason and view the opportunity cost of capital as the S&P.

But a lot of hedge funds aren't running high levels of beta, and investors in their funds don't demand that (unf for some hedge funds, who demanded low vol and then went into index funds when beta did well).

And, ofc, most equity hedge funds have had very strong performance. All the Tiger group hedge funds have private companies, everyone owns tech companies, you are even seeing value hedge funds in FAANG stocks...it is quite something.

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

#164

Post by dkrich »

The significance of this is greatly exaggerated imo. If anything the fact that tic tockers are following these things speaks more to the overall speculative mania that’s been going on for the past couple of years in the stock market than anything.

First, if you look at Pelosi’s husbands trades over the past few years they haven’t been in some small cap companies where he’s front running obvious price-moving news like an FDA approval or an acquisition. He’s basically been using leap call options on mega cap technology stocks that are extremely liquid and owned by pretty much anyone with a 401k. I have yet to see a single one that smacked of obvious insider knowledge that would obviously move the price higher. I’d wager that if the average person were privy to the same info they’d probably still lose money for the simple fact that even if you know the news ahead of time it is very difficult to predict short term market reactions to it.

It seems pretty obvious that this is an example of correlation where you have a member of Congress who could be privy to inside info, a massive bull market, and some leveraged exposure to it that in reality anyone could have replicated. But the inside trading angle makes for a good story so people are quick to attribute any gains to cheating, when in reality a good portion of it is probably just luck.

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

#165

Post by mercy_dude »

qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #114
cronix wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Not saying she didn't give him info, but she didn't do the actual trades. He's an investment manager. > Paul Pelosi, investment manager and the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, purchased up to $11 million worth of mega-cap tech stocks in May and June, according to a financial disclosure form filed last week. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi...

He has magical superpowers and just happens to be the husband of a policy maker that drives trillions in government spending.

Yeah every time someone comes defending this despicable human being who had got filthy rich in last 40yrs saying it is her husband, I just shake my head and ask when are these people going to retire? How much is enough for these people?

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

#166

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

But if you're the first to learn of it, trade, and then tell others about it so they trade, you still have the timing benefit. That's the thing of current-day amateur trading; some people get the first scoop, then hype it up on e.g. reddit for the masses to follow along. This was also a thing in crypto trading, where there are groups of amateur traders that plan internally to cause the stock market to change. They start the change, hype it up on social media, then sell off again before the hype hits its peak.

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

#167

Post by georgyo »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #166
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.

But if you're the first to learn of it, trade, and then tell others about it so they trade, you still have the timing benefit. That's the thing of current-day amateur trading; some people get the first scoop, then hype it up on e.g. reddit for the masses to follow along. This was also a thing in crypto trading, where there are groups of amateur traders that plan internally to cause the stock market to change. They st…

This is called pump and dump. It is illegal to do on the stock market.

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

#168

Post by yawaworht1978 »

Well, to do the exact same trade, they would need to place the trades at the same time. What they are doing is coming late to the party. Like these altcoin telegram channels, by the time the operators say it's still pumping, they have already placed the sell orders.

But this could have another cascading effect, if the tiktokers followers do the same after them, the price might go up in the cryptocoin space, but not on the stock market.

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

#169

Post by danuker »

ipaddr wrote: post #152
lostcolony wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'd be all for politicians having to put any investment money into blind trusts, sure. But that's different than saying they're insider trading.

They have insiders knowledge and they are trading on that. It is legal insider trading.

Why is it legal?

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

#170

Post by danuker »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #153
nradov wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When stocks only go up, every trading strategy appears to work. Let's see what happens during the next sustained bear market.

What would be a good strategy for the upcoming bear market?

Not to put your wealth in it. Own something else.

If you expect everything to fall vs. the national currency, buy the national currency.

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