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Would that be an issue if it was owned through an S&P 500 fund? I would agree that options look suspicious, even if they are not "short dated out of the money"
by perl4ever 5y ago
Would that be an issue if it was owned through an S&P 500 fund?
I would agree that options look suspicious, even if they are not "short dated out of the money" types.
But mega cap stocks are lot harder to manipulate than some tiny obscure company.
I think I read that Barack Obama put all his savings into government bonds while he was in office, which is admirable and maybe it would be good to mandate high level people all do that.
But if we don't have such a law, it doesn't seem too far out if they own the same big companies that almost everyone who invests in the stock market does.
Before accusing Mr. Pelosi, at a minimum, I think it would be relevant to check how much different his investment returns were from an index of the entire stock market.
I think there have been Republicans that were overzealously accused of insider trading during the beginning of the pandemic too. I forget who, but there was a fuss made about several of them and Matthew Levine dissected some of the claims in his column and didn't think there was much there.
- Consultant32452 5y agoThe returns don't matter. The conflict of interest matters. If you commit insider trading but wind up losing money you are just a sucky criminal. Blind trust is the only acceptable option. It's been tradition for Presidents through most of my lifetime. Trump didn't do it and it was rightfully a big shit storm.
- perl4ever 5y agoI'm not seeing the connection with the President or insider trading. Is there some specific knowledge that Pelosi allegedly traded on, that didn't belong to him?
- Consultant32452 5y agoGovernment officials should not be allowed to spend government funds at or write regulations for companies they own. Pelosi and indeed all of Congress has non-public information about laws, government contracts, etc. Right now they can and do trade with this "insider" information. Legally this is not considered insider trading. Congress wrote the legal definition of insider trading in such a way that excluded their insider knowledge. There is no value in arguing the semantics of this so I won't address it further. The traditional solution for this glaring conflict of interest that is used for Presidents is a blind trust. Most Presidents put their wealth in a blind trust to avoid even the potential of a conflict of interest between their actions as President and their personal wealth. Trump did not do this and it was a shit storm. He even tried to get the government to rent out his resort for some UN thing. Presidents and Congress should all be required to put their wealth into a blind trust to avoid conflict of interest.