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Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

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Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#111

Post by jefftk »

neilv wrote: post #50

I would love for all lawmakers to be limited to market index investing. Say, asset allocation (other than their home and a Washington pied a terre) of 50% US stocks index, 20% non-US stocks index, 30% US bonds index. No stock-picking. No sector-picking. No real estate other than through the indexes. No private company ownership. No trusts. No circumvention. Alignment with ordinary people's retirement funds seems grea…

Even broad market trends are something they could have inside information on, if they have advance notice of major legislative efforts success.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#112

Post by nickpeterson »

jakearmitage wrote: post #93
ckardat123 wrote: post #39

I started building out tools to track congressional stock trading in 2020. Since then, I believe there have been 9 other proposals similar to this one. None of them have been even called to a vote. It seem like Congress is pretty unwilling to regulate its own trading. Until they are, feel free to track the trading here: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/

I wish there was a tool that allowed me to follow Congress as if it was an index. Automatically buying and selling what they buy and sell. Right from my Fidelity or something.

If it got popular enough, congressmen would heavily buy a stock their spouse has short term options on, why not?

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#113

Post by ghaff »

mikestew wrote: post #97
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My immediate family can't trade Amazon stock even though I am just some random employee in this behemoth. It's relatively minor, but it's still legal repercussions.

...though I am just some random employee in this behemoth. I'm skeptical of "just some random employee", or a ban on immediate family trading AMZN. Because it's the first I've heard of this for an SDE that doesn't work in finance for Amazon, and I know plenty of folks that work at Amazon and trading AMZN has come up. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd sure double-check on that because it doesn't match my experience…

Trading windows are pretty normal but, if there's RSU comp, they have to be able to trade AMZN even if it's just pre-scheduled/approved.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#114

Post by ckardat123 »

ed_balls wrote: post #99
ckardat123 wrote: post #39

I started building out tools to track congressional stock trading in 2020. Since then, I believe there have been 9 other proposals similar to this one. None of them have been even called to a vote. It seem like Congress is pretty unwilling to regulate its own trading. Until they are, feel free to track the trading here: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/

TBH will the regulation change much? If congressmen won't be allow to own stock, they will use proxy (wife, siblings, parents, in-laws).

I think that if there were a law in place that made it illegal for congressmen to trade, it would be easier to catch insider trading because they would be forced to trade by proxy like you mentioned.

It's really hard to prove someone traded off of insider information if they make a decision to buy/sell for themselves. If they don't tell anyone else why they made the trade, you don't really have any proof that it was made off of material non-public information.

If a congressman is forced to ask someone else to trade for them, they might be careless and you might be able to find evidence via text messages or phone records.

The last time a U.S. Representative got convicted for insider trading, it was because he called his son to tell him to trade a stock that he had insider information on: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-congressman-chri...

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#115

Post by formerly_proven »

RajT88 wrote: post #103
philipov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I recall someone doing that analysis and posting about it on HN, but I don't remember what the conclusion was.

There's been articles which did the math before. Several - really every few years someone takes another pass at it. They do well. Generally, retiring their tenure wealthier than their congressional salary would allow at a 100% savings rate.

> Second, we conduct the first analysis of members’ portfolio holdings, showing that between 2004 and 2008 the average member of Congress would have earned higher returns in a passive index fund.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381613000194

> For all trades reported electronically and on paper, the buys and sells have the same pattern; they underperform slightly for the first few months and then outperform the market after 150 days by less than 1 percent, which is not statistically significant. Otherwise, the returns of the buys and sells appear to be relatively random.

> The results show that neither Democrat nor Republican senators are especially skilled at picking stocks to buy.

https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2020/04/us-senators-stock-pi...

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#117

Post by ckardat123 »

samsolomon wrote: post #100
ckardat123 wrote: post #39

I started building out tools to track congressional stock trading in 2020. Since then, I believe there have been 9 other proposals similar to this one. None of them have been even called to a vote. It seem like Congress is pretty unwilling to regulate its own trading. Until they are, feel free to track the trading here: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/

Love the font choice! Never heard of Rubik, but I like stocky letters with a tall x-height. Kind of reminds me of Colfax. https://processtypefoundry.com/fonts/colfax/ I might add the following for a slightly crisper look: text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;

Thanks! Appreciate the suggestion, I'll check out how that looks.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#118

Post by andsoitis »

RajT88 wrote: post #103
philipov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I recall someone doing that analysis and posting about it on HN, but I don't remember what the conclusion was.

There's been articles which did the math before. Several - really every few years someone takes another pass at it. They do well. Generally, retiring their tenure wealthier than their congressional salary would allow at a 100% savings rate.

I think the question is really whether they’re trading, say, outperform an index fund of the S&P 500?

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#119

Post by awestroke »

jefftk wrote: post #111
neilv wrote: post #50

I would love for all lawmakers to be limited to market index investing. Say, asset allocation (other than their home and a Washington pied a terre) of 50% US stocks index, 20% non-US stocks index, 30% US bonds index. No stock-picking. No sector-picking. No real estate other than through the indexes. No private company ownership. No trusts. No circumvention. Alignment with ordinary people's retirement funds seems grea…

Even broad market trends are something they could have inside information on, if they have advance notice of major legislative efforts success.

Then restrict them so that they can only buy/sell once per year, and need to declare their investment choice 1 month before the yearly buy/sell date
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