6 ms·

Would love to see the same penalties applied to members of congress who used info from private briefings at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to make stock

Would love to see the same penalties applied to members of congress who used info from private briefings at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to make stock trades. :|

AviationAtom 5y ago
They get special treatment
DevKoala 5y ago
This 100%. For example, Nancy Pelosi should be named the Wolf of Wall Street. Look at that amazing trade she made on cyber security companies right before the hacks on the government were announced. Source: https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20Pelosi https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20...
- alexatalktome 5y ago
  Can you name the companies and a source? I recall a few weeks ago there was a HN post about congressman but I didn’t recall seeing cyber security in the list.
  - DevKoala 5y ago
    https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20Pelosi https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20... Crowdstrike on September of 2020. I remember I went for it too, and it paid really well once the news the government had been hacked came out.
  - camjohnson26 5y ago
    They made a killing on Tesla calls for one, million dollar investment. https://newsthud.com/disclosure-fillings-reveal-pelosi-purchased-tesla-call-options-in-december/ https://newsthud.com/disclosure-fillings-reveal-pelosi-purch...
    - birken 5y ago
      It looks like her TSLA stock is down from when she purchased it, because there is no corresponding sale and TSLA is trading for less than it was on 12/21/2020 (and has been for the last month... the disclosure period for trades). So instead of purchasing an index fund, which would be up 10% since 12/21/20, she purchased TSLA which is down ~5%. So this trade underperformed the market by 15%, which seems like it is a horrible trade. Am I missing something? Why did you say she made a killing?
      - DevKoala 5y ago
        They didn’t buy stock, they bought option calls which use leverage to profit massively of small movements in the ticker. They are incredibly risky, and Nancy’s husband bet between 500k and $1M on them, which means that if the trade had gone sour, they could have lost that immediately. That’s WallStreetBets levels of gambling, and a strange behavior for an otherwise safe trader. Also, AFAIK there has been no update on whether those calls are still open or closed. They could have sold the covered calls already at a massive profit before the stock started to tank.
- lilyball 5y ago
  Nancy Pelosi’s story is her husband does the stock trading without her involvement (or even her knowledge prior to her regular reports to Congress about trading activity). If true (and assuming she’s not giving privileged info to her husband), that means no insider trading. Having said that, I really think Congresspeople should be prohibited from trading in individual stocks entirely, and restricted to just investing in index funds, if for no other reason than the PR problem of congresspeople appearing to profit off of their position.
  - nzrf 5y ago
    Wish we could see something like that happen, but you are going to need some representatives to vote against their best interest. Kind of like why run off voting will never see the light of day.
    - fedreserved 5y ago
      Bump their salary's up to a $1,000,000 a year and they may consider it b4 hyperinflation takes place
    - gnopgnip 5y ago
      The voted to pass the STOCK act, requiring disclosing these trades within ~30 days
      - ycombobreaker 5y ago
        30 days? That's some bullshit. Legislators trading based on closed-doors meetings related to "national security" (covid briefings) or even pending market-moving legislation should be on par with insider trading. It's not, and they will never collectively vote against their interests, to use their information for personal gain.
        gnopgnip 5y ago
        That is all on the table. The SEC can convict federal government employees of securities fraud for trading on this type of insider info
- tessierashpool 5y ago
  you changed the subject, though, or at least the target. parent comment was about David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two GOP senators who profited off the pandemic; this post redirects the topic, and the outrage, to Nancy Pelosi. it’s 100% legit to say that any Congressperson who trades stocks unethically should be criticized. but when I saw a deft change of target like this, I was not at all surprised to find you defending Trump in your post history. I’m partisan too, but let’s keep it above board.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Or when she or her husband longed TSLA calls a few days before Biden announced the government (Secret Service? Forgot exactly which part) will be buying EVs.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Lol, doesn't take insider trading to see that one coming...
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      And it could also be insider trading. This was a market moving announcement (in TSLA) a few days after she bought. There's plausible deniability for sure, it might've been coincidence, and I'm not denying that.
sneak 5y ago
Those private briefings likely did not contain nonpublic information, or especially nonpublic information about specific companies. The pandemic seemed obvious in February; I know dozens (myself included) who bought masks and supplies long before the run on stores, long before even the USG was lying to people telling them not to wear masks (to preserve the supply). The briefings were around then. Were I a gambling man, I too would have shorted airlines then, and I wasn't in any of those private briefings. The abuse is when they trade and then pass laws affecting the industries. A lot of kerfuffle has been around the covid briefings, but they didn't get anything an observant outsider couldn't see as well. It has to be nonpublic information to be insider trading.
- kaesar14 5y ago
  The stock market didn’t start to decline until Mid March so by definition the majority of “betting men” were still not sure the pandemic would have as far reaching of effects they did. It’s highly suspicious that US Congressmen did after getting briefs that were presumably not public information.
  - sneak 5y ago
    > The stock market didn’t start to decline until Mid March so by definition the majority of “betting men” were still not sure the pandemic would have as far reaching of effects they did. Indeed, there is a bell curve of "wait-and-see-what-the-others-do". https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
- brewdad 5y ago
  There absolutely was nonpublic information. Probably not about individual companies but certainly about the degree of the looming impact to the global economy.
  - lai-yin 5y ago
    You're overestimating what these private member briefings are really like.
leephillips 5y ago
Before passage of the STOCK act in 2012, there was disagreement whether members of congress could be prosecuted for insider trading.
marsven_422 5y ago
Congres have explicitly exemped themselves from the insider trading laws.

Would love to see the same penalties applied to members of congress who used info from private briefings at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to make stock trades. :|

AviationAtom 5y ago

They get special treatment

DevKoala 5y ago

This 100%. For example, Nancy Pelosi should be named the Wolf of Wall Street. Look at that amazing trade she made on cyber security companies right before the hacks on the government were announced. Source: https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20Pelosi https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20...

alexatalktome 5y ago
Can you name the companies and a source? I recall a few weeks ago there was a HN post about congressman but I didn’t recall seeing cyber security in the list.
- DevKoala 5y ago
  https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20Pelosi https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon.%20Nancy%20... Crowdstrike on September of 2020. I remember I went for it too, and it paid really well once the news the government had been hacked came out.
- camjohnson26 5y ago
  They made a killing on Tesla calls for one, million dollar investment. https://newsthud.com/disclosure-fillings-reveal-pelosi-purchased-tesla-call-options-in-december/ https://newsthud.com/disclosure-fillings-reveal-pelosi-purch...
  - birken 5y ago
    It looks like her TSLA stock is down from when she purchased it, because there is no corresponding sale and TSLA is trading for less than it was on 12/21/2020 (and has been for the last month... the disclosure period for trades). So instead of purchasing an index fund, which would be up 10% since 12/21/20, she purchased TSLA which is down ~5%. So this trade underperformed the market by 15%, which seems like it is a horrible trade. Am I missing something? Why did you say she made a killing?
    - DevKoala 5y ago
      They didn’t buy stock, they bought option calls which use leverage to profit massively of small movements in the ticker. They are incredibly risky, and Nancy’s husband bet between 500k and $1M on them, which means that if the trade had gone sour, they could have lost that immediately. That’s WallStreetBets levels of gambling, and a strange behavior for an otherwise safe trader. Also, AFAIK there has been no update on whether those calls are still open or closed. They could have sold the covered calls already at a massive profit before the stock started to tank.
lilyball 5y ago
Nancy Pelosi’s story is her husband does the stock trading without her involvement (or even her knowledge prior to her regular reports to Congress about trading activity). If true (and assuming she’s not giving privileged info to her husband), that means no insider trading. Having said that, I really think Congresspeople should be prohibited from trading in individual stocks entirely, and restricted to just investing in index funds, if for no other reason than the PR problem of congresspeople appearing to profit off of their position.
- nzrf 5y ago
  Wish we could see something like that happen, but you are going to need some representatives to vote against their best interest. Kind of like why run off voting will never see the light of day.
  - fedreserved 5y ago
    Bump their salary's up to a $1,000,000 a year and they may consider it b4 hyperinflation takes place
  - gnopgnip 5y ago
    The voted to pass the STOCK act, requiring disclosing these trades within ~30 days
    - ycombobreaker 5y ago
      30 days? That's some bullshit. Legislators trading based on closed-doors meetings related to "national security" (covid briefings) or even pending market-moving legislation should be on par with insider trading. It's not, and they will never collectively vote against their interests, to use their information for personal gain.
      - gnopgnip 5y ago
        That is all on the table. The SEC can convict federal government employees of securities fraud for trading on this type of insider info
tessierashpool 5y ago
you changed the subject, though, or at least the target. parent comment was about David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two GOP senators who profited off the pandemic; this post redirects the topic, and the outrage, to Nancy Pelosi. it’s 100% legit to say that any Congressperson who trades stocks unethically should be criticized. but when I saw a deft change of target like this, I was not at all surprised to find you defending Trump in your post history. I’m partisan too, but let’s keep it above board.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Or when she or her husband longed TSLA calls a few days before Biden announced the government (Secret Service? Forgot exactly which part) will be buying EVs.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Lol, doesn't take insider trading to see that one coming...
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    And it could also be insider trading. This was a market moving announcement (in TSLA) a few days after she bought. There's plausible deniability for sure, it might've been coincidence, and I'm not denying that.

sneak 5y ago

Those private briefings likely did not contain nonpublic information, or especially nonpublic information about specific companies. The pandemic seemed obvious in February; I know dozens (myself included) who bought masks and supplies long before the run on stores, long before even the USG was lying to people telling them not to wear masks (to preserve the supply). The briefings were around then. Were I a gambling man, I too would have shorted airlines then, and I wasn't in any of those private briefings. The abuse is when they trade and then pass laws affecting the industries. A lot of kerfuffle has been around the covid briefings, but they didn't get anything an observant outsider couldn't see as well. It has to be nonpublic information to be insider trading.

kaesar14 5y ago
The stock market didn’t start to decline until Mid March so by definition the majority of “betting men” were still not sure the pandemic would have as far reaching of effects they did. It’s highly suspicious that US Congressmen did after getting briefs that were presumably not public information.
- sneak 5y ago
  > The stock market didn’t start to decline until Mid March so by definition the majority of “betting men” were still not sure the pandemic would have as far reaching of effects they did. Indeed, there is a bell curve of "wait-and-see-what-the-others-do". https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
brewdad 5y ago
There absolutely was nonpublic information. Probably not about individual companies but certainly about the degree of the looming impact to the global economy.
- lai-yin 5y ago
  You're overestimating what these private member briefings are really like.

leephillips 5y ago

Before passage of the STOCK act in 2012, there was disagreement whether members of congress could be prosecuted for insider trading.

marsven_422 5y ago

Congres have explicitly exemped themselves from the insider trading laws.