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Take a look at the source of the graphic in the linked article (https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/congress-trading-report-2023 https://unusualwhales.co

Take a look at the source of the graphic in the linked article (https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/congress-trading-report-2023 https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/congress-trading-...). Yes, you can cherry-pick a population that doesn’t have insider information where 33% beat the market in any given year, but you wouldn’t expect that same population to consistently beat the market, year over year. In fact the whole argument for index funds is that, in aggregate, no one, including professional traders or anyone else without unfair market advantage, consistently and reliably beats the market itself over the long run. But it seems here’s a population that both inarguably has insider information and where 33% does consistently beat the market over and over, year after year. Lack of evidence also simply isn’t particularly relevant, as the point isn’t to convict the legislator — who has the power to ensure such evidence isn’t available, and even if it were that it wouldn’t represent a crime, and even if it did that they wouldn’t be punished, etc — but instead to convince the voter to consider whether or not their vote should go to someone who disagrees with the notion that Caesar must be beyond reproach.

kasey_junk 3y ago
Your argument contains a pretty serious logic flaw. You are taking the top line argument (100 traders 33% beat the market, congress consistently beats the market, thus its indicative of an information advantage). But look at the underlying data. There are very few congress people that beat the market in 2023 and in 2022. I counted 5 members who beat the S&P in both years. Of those 3 have no trades, so were just marking existing positions that happened to be better than the market including the previously mentioned NVDIA stock. A 4th has 1 trade total. The final one is Ron Blumenthal. He is an active trader but also one of the richest men in politics. He made his money the old fashioned way, he married rich. Every other congress person would have been better off in an index fund as expected. Its easy to write dramatic headlines about Congress people trading, and there are very good reasons that they shouldn't (it influencing their votes is top of that) but there is very little evidence of any significant information advantage in the trading positions or returns of congress people.

kasey_junk 3y ago

Your argument contains a pretty serious logic flaw. You are taking the top line argument (100 traders 33% beat the market, congress consistently beats the market, thus its indicative of an information advantage). But look at the underlying data. There are very few congress people that beat the market in 2023 and in 2022. I counted 5 members who beat the S&P in both years. Of those 3 have no trades, so were just marking existing positions that happened to be better than the market including the previously mentioned NVDIA stock. A 4th has 1 trade total. The final one is Ron Blumenthal. He is an active trader but also one of the richest men in politics. He made his money the old fashioned way, he married rich. Every other congress person would have been better off in an index fund as expected. Its easy to write dramatic headlines about Congress people trading, and there are very good reasons that they shouldn't (it influencing their votes is top of that) but there is very little evidence of any significant information advantage in the trading positions or returns of congress people.