5 ms·

As I've said before, publish the trades of politicians and Fed officials online every evening. If they make hundreds of millions trading on information the publ

As I've said before, publish the trades of politicians and Fed officials online every evening. If they make hundreds of millions trading on information the public is unaware of, disseminate that information quickly. Politicians say things they know are untrue, but they will trade in what they perceive to be their interests. "Some of the most egregious stock trading in Congress occurred when several Senators dumped large volumes of stock in Winter 2020, right after Congress was briefed on the magnitude of the Covid threat. Sen. Kelly Loeffler sold millions in stock. Her fellow Georgia Sen. David Purdue made a windfall by dumping and buying back stock. Sen. Richard Burr offloaded more than $1.6 million in stock ahead of the market crash (and then made a suspicious call to his brother-in-law, who promptly called a broker)."

rolobio 5y ago
Sounds great. Could we also start some sort of Index fund using those trades? Congress seems to have some fantastic returns I would like to tap into!
- sputknick 5y ago
  Not an index fund, but you can programmatically get access to their disclosed trades and create your own trading bot from there. I think this disclosures are a month or so after the fact. https://api.quiverquant.com/docs/ https://api.quiverquant.com/docs/
  - rolobio 5y ago
    Nice info. A days lag would be better, or instant! I think a month would give them plenty of time to dodge the crash. Like happened in 2020.
- adoxyz 5y ago
  They're required to disclose the trades, but usually have like 2 months to do it and the fines for not disclosing or improperly disclosing are minimal to none. It's a joke. They should be held accountable like most people that have a conflict of interest. I work for a publicly traded company, and even though I don't have anything to do with the financial side of things, I'm forbidden from trading for most of the year to avoid any potential conflict of interest.
- Teknoman117 5y ago
  I remember a thread on this a few months back, and the problem is that most of these trades happen at the small windows in time where members of congress have information the public doesn't. While trades by members of congress have to be made public, there is a delay. If you buy/sell after the delay (up to 45 days), the performance isn't really going to correlate with what they're getting.
- csee 5y ago
  Side effect would be that this would help them make even more money, due to lots of money following their trades after they have entered the position, and it would create pump and dump incentives.
melony 5y ago
Why online in the evening? Do it in real time with an official federal FIX stream.
- filoleg 5y ago
  Imo real time is not enough, but it is a solid bare minimum requirement. If private executives have to schedule and declare their company equity trades months and months ahead of time, why do we let the government officials off the hook with just real time? I am not proposing the same “months and months ahead” rules for politicians, because for private executives that restriction applies only to the equity of their own companies (while for congress it would be for all companies). But what about a day ahead? I think that’s reasonable to make government officials to declare their trade a day ahead. After all, unless it is some specifically-timed trade based on insider info, why would it matter? It is just a single day. But i would also be ok with “declared a day ahead to SEC, with the trade info being automatically released to the public the second it happens” (basically, same as real-time, but with an extra safeguard). Mostly proposing this one, because I am concerned that knowing their trades ahead of time publicly might introduce unwanted side effects.
  - adoxyz 5y ago
    I'd be ok with them having to declare it months ahead of time, or better yet, banning individual stock ownership for members of congress who have the most privileged information.
  - TheDong 5y ago
    > because I am concerned that knowing their trades ahead of time publicly might introduce unwanted side effects. Unwanted side effects like them not buying small volatile stocks that are perfect for insider trading, and instead buying large index funds that are difficult to manipulate? Frankly, anyone who's buying small named stocks that the market can move is either 1) a gambling addict, 2) a professional daytrader, 3) an idiot, 4) breaking the law, or 5) all of the above. I would personally prefer that we do not hire day-traders to represent us in government (or if we do, that they stop daytrading for the duration), so I'm fine if this just has the side-effect of no congress-people daytrading.
Supermancho 5y ago
> As I've said before, publish the trades of politicians and Fed officials online every evening Just like banning trading, this will be circumvented by family/business proxies doing the trades. Including potential family proxies, in the public accounting, would probably be the most effective move to motivate ethical behavior. At least put some risk in the form of the relationship to the business partners, given the vast amounts of money flowing.
TheDong 5y ago
I've got a slight improvement to your idea. Instead of publishing the trades after, or as they make them, instead publish them before they make them. Require any congress-person who wishes to trade a stock to write a plan saying "I will buy/sell roughly this many dollars worth of these shares on this date", and require the plan to be published a week before the trade is executed. We already require CEOs and company officers at large companies to do similar plans (though they do not have to publish them publicly ahead of time), and requiring our government officials to act as sorta officers of the entire economy seems kinda fair. They have material information on many different things. Making them decide on trades weeks or months in advance seems like it should prevent day trading, while still letting them invest in reasonable portfolios if they want.
- Bostonian 5y ago
  The difference between our views is that I want government insiders to trade on their information, as long as their trades are soon publicized, so that the information is quickly incorporated into market prices. Slowing down their trading by making them wait a week interferes with that.
- gamerDude 5y ago
  When I worked in a financial trading firm, I had to submit trades that I would make 3 days before hand and then get them approved to make sure I had no relationship to that stock. The same seems fine with me for any government official. Make a trade request, gets published publicly, a legal body reviews and allows or denies.
  - sumedh 5y ago
    > a legal body reviews and allows or denies. Who will be the members of the legal body?
    - iaw 5y ago
      Congr- Oh.... I see what you did there.
  - 5y ago
panny 5y ago
>As I've said before, publish the trades of politicians and Fed officials online every evening. If they make hundreds of millions trading on information the public is unaware of, disseminate that information quickly. Then Senator Jackass dumps stock on Monday to crash it and picks it back up for a song on Tuesday.
- dudus 5y ago
  Wouldn't that be a wash trade?
revscat 5y ago
What benefit would that serve? We already know this is happening. So we would know it... more?

rolobio 5y ago

Sounds great. Could we also start some sort of Index fund using those trades? Congress seems to have some fantastic returns I would like to tap into!

sputknick 5y ago
Not an index fund, but you can programmatically get access to their disclosed trades and create your own trading bot from there. I think this disclosures are a month or so after the fact. https://api.quiverquant.com/docs/ https://api.quiverquant.com/docs/
- rolobio 5y ago
  Nice info. A days lag would be better, or instant! I think a month would give them plenty of time to dodge the crash. Like happened in 2020.
adoxyz 5y ago
They're required to disclose the trades, but usually have like 2 months to do it and the fines for not disclosing or improperly disclosing are minimal to none. It's a joke. They should be held accountable like most people that have a conflict of interest. I work for a publicly traded company, and even though I don't have anything to do with the financial side of things, I'm forbidden from trading for most of the year to avoid any potential conflict of interest.
Teknoman117 5y ago
I remember a thread on this a few months back, and the problem is that most of these trades happen at the small windows in time where members of congress have information the public doesn't. While trades by members of congress have to be made public, there is a delay. If you buy/sell after the delay (up to 45 days), the performance isn't really going to correlate with what they're getting.
csee 5y ago
Side effect would be that this would help them make even more money, due to lots of money following their trades after they have entered the position, and it would create pump and dump incentives.

melony 5y ago

Why online in the evening? Do it in real time with an official federal FIX stream.

filoleg 5y ago
Imo real time is not enough, but it is a solid bare minimum requirement. If private executives have to schedule and declare their company equity trades months and months ahead of time, why do we let the government officials off the hook with just real time? I am not proposing the same “months and months ahead” rules for politicians, because for private executives that restriction applies only to the equity of their own companies (while for congress it would be for all companies). But what about a day ahead? I think that’s reasonable to make government officials to declare their trade a day ahead. After all, unless it is some specifically-timed trade based on insider info, why would it matter? It is just a single day. But i would also be ok with “declared a day ahead to SEC, with the trade info being automatically released to the public the second it happens” (basically, same as real-time, but with an extra safeguard). Mostly proposing this one, because I am concerned that knowing their trades ahead of time publicly might introduce unwanted side effects.
- adoxyz 5y ago
  I'd be ok with them having to declare it months ahead of time, or better yet, banning individual stock ownership for members of congress who have the most privileged information.
- TheDong 5y ago
  > because I am concerned that knowing their trades ahead of time publicly might introduce unwanted side effects. Unwanted side effects like them not buying small volatile stocks that are perfect for insider trading, and instead buying large index funds that are difficult to manipulate? Frankly, anyone who's buying small named stocks that the market can move is either 1) a gambling addict, 2) a professional daytrader, 3) an idiot, 4) breaking the law, or 5) all of the above. I would personally prefer that we do not hire day-traders to represent us in government (or if we do, that they stop daytrading for the duration), so I'm fine if this just has the side-effect of no congress-people daytrading.

Supermancho 5y ago

> As I've said before, publish the trades of politicians and Fed officials online every evening Just like banning trading, this will be circumvented by family/business proxies doing the trades. Including potential family proxies, in the public accounting, would probably be the most effective move to motivate ethical behavior. At least put some risk in the form of the relationship to the business partners, given the vast amounts of money flowing.

TheDong 5y ago

I've got a slight improvement to your idea. Instead of publishing the trades after, or as they make them, instead publish them before they make them. Require any congress-person who wishes to trade a stock to write a plan saying "I will buy/sell roughly this many dollars worth of these shares on this date", and require the plan to be published a week before the trade is executed. We already require CEOs and company officers at large companies to do similar plans (though they do not have to publish them publicly ahead of time), and requiring our government officials to act as sorta officers of the entire economy seems kinda fair. They have material information on many different things. Making them decide on trades weeks or months in advance seems like it should prevent day trading, while still letting them invest in reasonable portfolios if they want.

Bostonian 5y ago
The difference between our views is that I want government insiders to trade on their information, as long as their trades are soon publicized, so that the information is quickly incorporated into market prices. Slowing down their trading by making them wait a week interferes with that.
gamerDude 5y ago
When I worked in a financial trading firm, I had to submit trades that I would make 3 days before hand and then get them approved to make sure I had no relationship to that stock. The same seems fine with me for any government official. Make a trade request, gets published publicly, a legal body reviews and allows or denies.
- sumedh 5y ago
  > a legal body reviews and allows or denies. Who will be the members of the legal body?
  - iaw 5y ago
    Congr- Oh.... I see what you did there.
- 5y ago

panny 5y ago

>As I've said before, publish the trades of politicians and Fed officials online every evening. If they make hundreds of millions trading on information the public is unaware of, disseminate that information quickly. Then Senator Jackass dumps stock on Monday to crash it and picks it back up for a song on Tuesday.

dudus 5y ago
Wouldn't that be a wash trade?

revscat 5y ago

What benefit would that serve? We already know this is happening. So we would know it... more?