About Those Stock Trades

Yesterday I reported on the brilliant stock market trading of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her husband (article here). Today there is a report out about a brilliant Senator whose superior intellect allowed him to avoid major losses in the stock market.

The Daily Caller reports:

Sen. Richard Burr’s “well-timed stock sales” prior to the economic downturn in late February 2020 saved him over $87,000, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit unsealed Monday.

The unsealed warrant is in connection to a prior Justice Department (DOJ) investigation into alleged insider trading by the North Carolina Republican during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic — which was closed in January 2021 after the DOJ decided not to pursue charges. The senator profited over $144,000 on his stock sales in February 2020, the affidavit says.

The article concludes:

Burr also called his brother-in-law after he sold the stocks, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged in October 2021, according to ProPublica. His brother-in-law sold up to $280,000 worth of stock that same day, the outlet previously reported.

The SEC was reportedly investigating the incident for possible insider trading and it is unclear if that probe is ongoing.

Burr’s office did not respond to a request for comment nor did the FBI or the SEC.

Oh to trade in the stock market like Congress trades.

Wishing I Had The Same Stock Advisors As The House Of Representatives

On Friday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about a recent stock trade by Nancy and Paul Pelosi.

The article reports:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and her multimillionaire husband, Paul Pelosi, saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling their shares in Nvidia about one month before the U.S. government placed restrictions on the tech company, causing its stock price to plummet.

In July, the Pelosis sold all 25,000 of their shares in Nvidia. On Aug. 26, the government ordered Nvidia to stop selling microchips in China and Russia without authorization, which could cost the company up to $400 million, CNBC reported on Wednesday. The day after CNBC’s report, Nvidia’s stock price was down nearly 12 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Maybe we should all just keep a record of what stocks Congressmen are trading and simply follow suit.

The article continues:

By selling the shares before the news broke, the speaker and her husband saved around $600,000, according to multiple Twitter accounts that track the Pelosis’ controversial stock trades.

Paul Pelosi has a long history of making “timely” purchases in companies that his wife has worked to subsidize, the Washington Free Beacon has reported. He purchased the Nvidia stock in June as the speaker oversaw a bill that would grant billions of dollars in subsidies that could benefit the company.

Internet stock traders often follow Nancy Pelosi’s purchases and selloffs for investing tips, Business Insider reported, with some suggesting “she’s making the big bucks off of insider information.”

Stock trading is simply one of many ways that a middle-class American can enter Congress and emerge four years as a millionaire.

Maybe We Should All Hire Congress As Investment Advisors

On Tuesday, Trending Politics reported that in 2021 stock trading by Congress beat the S&P 500. Now the Congress people could simply be lucky. If you think it might be because the people in Congress are smarter than the people at S&P, I would like to remind you of an event reported by CBS News on April 1, 2010.

CBS News reported the following:

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is raising some eyebrows with a comment he made about the U.S. territory of Guam during a House Armed Services Committee hearing last Thursday.

In a discussion regarding a planned military buildup on the Pacific island, Johnson expressed some concerns about the plans to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet.

“My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” Johnson said. Willard paused and replied, “We don’t anticipate that.”

So much for the idea that people in Congress are smarter than the average American.

The article at Trending Politics quotes a shocking report from Unusual Whales:

According to that report, 105 members of Congress were involved in over 3,500 trades last year, selling somewhere in the range of $290 million in stocks. Further, 6 members of Congress were involved in over 270 options contract transactions totaling about $140 million, and 19 members engaged in $124 million worth of transactions involving “other securities like private equity funds.” Oh, and 6 members were involved in 25 transactions of cryptocurrencies worth a paltry (by comparison) $500k.

Those figures, again according to the report, represent about a $200 million decrease in total trades but a 5x explosion in Congressional trading of option contracts. Democrats and Republicans traded similar amounts, with Democrats just edging out Republicans, though Senators did trade about 3x more than members of the House.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It provides a possible clue as to how people in Congress become millionaires on a salary of less than $200,000. This is a bipartisan problem.