4 ms·

Proposal : A congressman can trade to their hearts content but must publicize their intentions to purchase or sell a stock with a minimum of at least 24 hours.

Proposal : A congressman can trade to their hearts content but must publicize their intentions to purchase or sell a stock with a minimum of at least 24 hours. This gives the public the open view of their intentions however they come to that decision, but the open market can then decide how to react to the congressman’s decision before they actually finalize a trade.

torginus 11mo ago
Although this sounds like a sensible idea, I think it's impossible to prevent insider trading - if you introduce a rule like this, politicians will just find a middle man or work around it in some other way - the corruption schemes getting more elaborate is the last thing you want.
- margalabargala 11mo ago
  The goal isn't to make it impossible to do insider trading, it's to set some controls and have consequences when they aren't followed. The middle man scheme you mention would be illegal under OP's idea. So prosecute everyone involved. The more people involved, the harder to hide it. Your argument is basically "it doesn't make sense to have murder be illegal because the law won't prevent the bullet from flying."
- octoberfranklin 11mo ago
  Yeah, unfortunately. This is pervasive in China; the politicians kid is the middleman. One child policy, so there's at most one kid -- makes it easy to know who to give the stock tips to.
  - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
    That should make it incredibly easy to weed out then, surely?
    - expedition32 11mo ago
      Corruption is not weeded out because no matter how much people complain they WANT the corruption. Bernie Sanders is not the president of the United States.
- kelnos 11mo ago
  > I think it's impossible to prevent insider trading Sure. It's impossible to prevent all crime. But that doesn't mean that rules and restrictions around what you can and can't do are useless. The existing rules for prohibiting insider trading when it comes to corporate executives work decently well; we should just expand those to apply to people in Congress (and make it apply to all securities for them). It won't catch everything, but it will help. A lot.
0xbadcafebee 11mo ago
But they hold influence as congresspeople. Announcing their favor or disfavor for a thing influences people and corporations. The market would swing more from their announcements and citizens would invest or divest along party lines. Neither are good economics. At minimum they shouldn't be allowed to trade individual stock. I don't think this stops workarounds but it's the least we could do.
- PartiallyTyped 11mo ago
  That creates more trading opportunities tbh and eventually the market will calibrate. Similar has happened to trump and his tarrifs plus all those truth/xitter messages.
Ikatza 11mo ago
I've made thousands of dollars just by following the Pelosi tracker on X. Most of the time a stock soars just on the effect of a congressman buying that stock.
- tptacek 11mo ago
  Just buy QQQ. She doesn't have a magic strategy. In fact, she probably underperforms given how long she is in tech and how leveraged her trades are (people forget she's married to a venture capitalist).
  - 1234letshaveatw 11mo ago
    underperforms what? Certainly not the market
    - tptacek 11mo ago
      What their returns should have been given their leverage.
  - throwaway2037 11mo ago
    > how leveraged her trades are What does this phrase mean?
    - tptacek 11mo ago
      The Pelosis use a call option strategy to do leveraged buys for their positions.
      - throwaway2037 11mo ago
        That is wild! I cannot believe that is allowed. Retail investors using options is always a "gambling strategy"... or in her case probably _near_ insider information.
        11mo ago
seanmcdirmid 11mo ago
Has anyone actually studied their trading activity at a finer grained level? I doubt many of them are day trading, so I think the 24 hour rule wouldn't have much of an effect.
xboxnolifes 11mo ago
24 hours? Representatives should have similar restrictions as high level leadership of companies. Their trades should be scheduled months ahead of time.
agosta 11mo ago
No. They simply shouldn't be able to trade individual stocks. Requiring them to tell the world the exact second they're buying a stock doesn't change that that purchase was made to make money. If you're the elected authority who, by your rule, creates corporate winners and losers, we should not merely have to hope that your rule benefits us more than it does you. The job description is clear - you're a civil servant. If doing your job as a senator is unappealing to you because you can no longer invest in individual companies, then don't let the door hit you on the way out. Goodbye
joquarky 11mo ago
Public service should come with a permanent loss of financial privacy.
kelnos 11mo ago
There's no reason to invent new rules here. We already have a process for this: executives of companies are required to set up their trading plans months in advance (at least when it comes to stock in their own companies). Just require people in Congress to follow the same process, but for any stock, bond, ETF, etc.

torginus 11mo ago

Although this sounds like a sensible idea, I think it's impossible to prevent insider trading - if you introduce a rule like this, politicians will just find a middle man or work around it in some other way - the corruption schemes getting more elaborate is the last thing you want.

margalabargala 11mo ago
The goal isn't to make it impossible to do insider trading, it's to set some controls and have consequences when they aren't followed. The middle man scheme you mention would be illegal under OP's idea. So prosecute everyone involved. The more people involved, the harder to hide it. Your argument is basically "it doesn't make sense to have murder be illegal because the law won't prevent the bullet from flying."
octoberfranklin 11mo ago
Yeah, unfortunately. This is pervasive in China; the politicians kid is the middleman. One child policy, so there's at most one kid -- makes it easy to know who to give the stock tips to.
- hrimfaxi 11mo ago
  That should make it incredibly easy to weed out then, surely?
  - expedition32 11mo ago
    Corruption is not weeded out because no matter how much people complain they WANT the corruption. Bernie Sanders is not the president of the United States.
kelnos 11mo ago
> I think it's impossible to prevent insider trading Sure. It's impossible to prevent all crime. But that doesn't mean that rules and restrictions around what you can and can't do are useless. The existing rules for prohibiting insider trading when it comes to corporate executives work decently well; we should just expand those to apply to people in Congress (and make it apply to all securities for them). It won't catch everything, but it will help. A lot.

0xbadcafebee 11mo ago

But they hold influence as congresspeople. Announcing their favor or disfavor for a thing influences people and corporations. The market would swing more from their announcements and citizens would invest or divest along party lines. Neither are good economics. At minimum they shouldn't be allowed to trade individual stock. I don't think this stops workarounds but it's the least we could do.

PartiallyTyped 11mo ago
That creates more trading opportunities tbh and eventually the market will calibrate. Similar has happened to trump and his tarrifs plus all those truth/xitter messages.

Ikatza 11mo ago

I've made thousands of dollars just by following the Pelosi tracker on X. Most of the time a stock soars just on the effect of a congressman buying that stock.

tptacek 11mo ago
Just buy QQQ. She doesn't have a magic strategy. In fact, she probably underperforms given how long she is in tech and how leveraged her trades are (people forget she's married to a venture capitalist).
- 1234letshaveatw 11mo ago
  underperforms what? Certainly not the market
  - tptacek 11mo ago
    What their returns should have been given their leverage.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago
  > how leveraged her trades are What does this phrase mean?
  - tptacek 11mo ago
    The Pelosis use a call option strategy to do leveraged buys for their positions.
    - throwaway2037 11mo ago
      That is wild! I cannot believe that is allowed. Retail investors using options is always a "gambling strategy"... or in her case probably _near_ insider information.
      - 11mo ago

seanmcdirmid 11mo ago

Has anyone actually studied their trading activity at a finer grained level? I doubt many of them are day trading, so I think the 24 hour rule wouldn't have much of an effect.

xboxnolifes 11mo ago

24 hours? Representatives should have similar restrictions as high level leadership of companies. Their trades should be scheduled months ahead of time.

agosta 11mo ago

No. They simply shouldn't be able to trade individual stocks. Requiring them to tell the world the exact second they're buying a stock doesn't change that that purchase was made to make money. If you're the elected authority who, by your rule, creates corporate winners and losers, we should not merely have to hope that your rule benefits us more than it does you. The job description is clear - you're a civil servant. If doing your job as a senator is unappealing to you because you can no longer invest in individual companies, then don't let the door hit you on the way out. Goodbye

joquarky 11mo ago

Public service should come with a permanent loss of financial privacy.

kelnos 11mo ago

There's no reason to invent new rules here. We already have a process for this: executives of companies are required to set up their trading plans months in advance (at least when it comes to stock in their own companies). Just require people in Congress to follow the same process, but for any stock, bond, ETF, etc.