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Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

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Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#171

Post by mustafa_pasi »

sethammons wrote: post #67
mabbo wrote: post #9

The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it. How do you change this? No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?

my naive solution: politicians become monks. They go without. They are provided modest housing and budgets. I'm sure there are zounds of issues with it, but I like to imagine servant leaders who go without to do more for the communities they serve.

The Catholic Church tried this and it did not work. Monks and nuns still become greedy, still compete for positions of power and still abuse their power when they get it.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#172

Post by ABeeSea »

seriousquestion wrote: post #155
ABeeSea wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. This is not true. It’s very odd to see the kind of right-wing conspiracies based on outright fabrications spread on HN as literal truths. Here is an article from December 22 were Pelosi is calling for more stimulus: www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/12/22/trump-calls-covid-relief-bill-unsuitable-and-demands-congress-add-higher-stimulus-payments.html Here is her direct tweet dated 12/…

People are confused about this because Pelosi rejected the stimulus in October, prior to the election. She didn't accept until December, post election. Some democrats were urging her to accept it in October: https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1315078896853843970

That’s not what the business insider linked in the tweet says. It says she described the White House plan as “insufficient” meaning there wasn’t enough stimulus in it. How can criticizing a bill for not having enough stimulus mean you are against stimulus?

The House had passed the HEROES act for additional stimulus in May 2020. The Republican senate refused to even put it up for a vote. She was always for passing of the HEROES act even during this October - December period. She was always pro stimulus.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#173

Post by teh_infallible »

yumraj wrote: post #101
sakopov wrote: post #15

> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…

I'm curious if any of this falls under the definition of insider trading . It should, but I think it doesn't and which is why SEC doesn't get involved in these. Does anyone know?

The SEC has long been selective about which rules they enforce and when.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#174

Post by sneak »

skohan wrote: post #156
sneak wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's working as intended and that it's insane that people are surprised it's set up this way. The state and large corporate interests in the USA are very tightly integrated and have been for at least an entire generation.

But this is so cynical. Not to be naive, but if we can't at least start from the framework that the government should serve primarily the interests of the people and be outraged when it doesn't, then the American project is pretty much over

I'm not sure that has ever been true, or ever been the goal.

The American government does serve the interests of the American people: the American people who own the bulk of the land and the largest companies.

George Washington was the largest landowner in the colonies when the revolution started.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#175

Post by ProjectBarks »

I am curious why unusual whales did not compare performance to market performance over set periods. I looked around for some papers and was unable to find anything recent. CATO published a report showing there is weak performance difference between senators and their stock portfolio [1].

If they are outperforming this should 100% be remedied but I'd be open if anyone has comments that would contradict this report?

[1] https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-policy/relief-...

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#176

Post by tshaddox »

stereolambda wrote: post #113
sakopov wrote: post #15

> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…

Please correct me, but here's a provocative hypothesis I spent three minutes thinking through. Couldn't you say that speculating with insider information on public markets can be a way for public officials to make a lot of money without marrying themselves to any particular interests? In that case, couldn't it be potentially a mechanism we can exploit for good? Disclaimer: not American, no strong opinion on these peo…

Sure, speculating on insider information on public markets is a great way for anyone to make a lot of money. It's also highly illegal, although there does seem to be some fairly prominent views that allowing insider trading would actually help get relevant information priced into the public markets.

But even if you're one of those proponents of insider trading, surely this is clearly different and worse than that, because prominent politicians surely have some power to influence winners and losers.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#177

Post by adolph »

stereolambda wrote: post #113
sakopov wrote: post #15

> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…

Please correct me, but here's a provocative hypothesis I spent three minutes thinking through. Couldn't you say that speculating with insider information on public markets can be a way for public officials to make a lot of money without marrying themselves to any particular interests? In that case, couldn't it be potentially a mechanism we can exploit for good? Disclaimer: not American, no strong opinion on these peo…

In most situations this is called insider trading and is considered unfair in public markets since the trades of insiders may be concealed, like through a family member.

Within an organization making a decision that advantages oneself is unethical since the purpose of the most organizations is not to fulfill the personal interests of its employees.

It would make some sense to convert all property holdings of a government employee to financial instruments related to the health of the government such as treasury notes. That way their personal interests are at least aligned with those of the government. To the degree that the instruments measure aspects of the government that are not totally aligned with the governed is a problem however.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#178

Post by fakedang »

partiallypro wrote: post #110
munk-a wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We elect people who actually believe in governance instead of people out to make a buck. I know that everyone's going to act in their own interest (that's sorta how interests are defined) but some people feel a legitimate duty and loyalty to country and welfare above their own personal comfort - these people tend to be torpedoed very early on in US politics because they refuse to cozy up to special interests to play…

AOC has been silent on Democrats doing similar, which make it seem like she doesn't really care.

AOC was vociferously calling for the shutdown of Parler on Twitter, when the protest was coordinated over Facebook and Twitter too. Imo, she's just a classic Democrat politician with a louder mouth, enough to rival the Republican mouths.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#179

Post by somethoughts »

psychlops wrote: post #151
wpietri wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth, I think the appearance of conflicting interests is a problem regardless. For a lot of elected offices and high public service positions, I think their wealth should be put into a blind trust, one constrained by law to buy broad, boring things like index funds. That would surely be a problem for some individuals. But I don't think it's a systemic problem. We only need to find 0.00…

Just require them to announce their trades publicly 24 hours in advance. And let them manage their own finances. All these shenanigan's would disappear.

Yes - in addition - just have documentation sites like unusual whales which track the trades, holdings and profits of politicians - create infographics prior to every election and distribute them to existing voter information/polling prediction sites like real clear politics.

Politicians already long on certain stocks can also profit from legislation that they are passing. Being privy to insider info which leads to continuing to stay long a stock is an advantage that wouldn't be detected by just sharing recent trades.

In addition to trying to eradicate insider trading - just shedding light on existing holdings by US office holders will have a huge cleansing effect that will go a long way to showing potential biases/conflicts of interest.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#180

Post by de6u99er »

finexplained wrote: post #138
de6u99er wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about their friends and families?

In the financial industry we have restrictions not only on our own trading accounts, but on any account that we might have reasonable influence over. In my particular case, this means both my brokerage accounts and any of those belonging to a spouse. This is a requirement by our compliance departments to follow SEC regulations regarding insider trading. I don't see why similar rules would not be applied in this setti…

Sure, but ultimately it's only a crime if they get caught. And even then it seems to me that they can get away with it too easily.

How about electing honest people, instead of constantly voting for the establishement (w. a few exceptions).

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