Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by Joker_vD on Thursday April 15, 2021 @01:37PM (#26823642)

Well, when the order of events is "A committee which Pelosi is member of is discussing the large contract on the VR helmets for the military — Pelosi's husband buys MSFT — The committee anounces that the contract goes to MSFT — MSFT stock rises", and the pattern keeps repeating, it is evidence, albeit circumstantial.

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by throwaway5752 on Thursday April 15, 2021 @01:50PM (#26823846)

Seriously, I am very serious about preventing conflicts of interest and insider trading. But Microsoft is a terrible example, they are extremely diversified. The contract was announced 3/31 and it's obvious that it had no particular impact on its share price since that date when looking at its peers: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/MSFT:NASDAQ?comparison=...

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by pc86 on Thursday April 15, 2021 @06:12PM (#26826806)

It went from approximately $235 to $250, which is about 6%. On calls, especially short-dated ones, that can easily be a 40-50% gain. I've got a number of different MSFT LEAPS in my portfolio and they all went up 15%+ on that news.

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by jmoss20 on Thursday April 15, 2021 @09:10PM (#26828178)

Relative to their peers though: Alphabet went up almost 8% the same day, clearly not due to Microsoft's VR contract.

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by jonhohle on Thursday April 15, 2021 @01:53PM (#26823876)

That seems like the definition of material, non-public information. In the past I don’t think Congress was bound to the same trading rules as the general public (blech), but last I checked, Mr. Pelosi is not in Congress.

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by TheCoelacanth on Thursday April 15, 2021 @02:59PM (#26824759)

Congress is bound by the same rules as the general public, they just aren't legally insiders.

Insider trading requires not only material, non-public but also some kind of duty of confidentiality to the company you are trading.

Congress doesn't have that type of relationship, so they are not insiders. Their spouses aren't either.

There are some additional rules that apply to people who gain knowledge in an official capacity[1], but these were enacted fairly recently and haven't been effective at keeping Congress from trading using the non-public information that they receive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by jonhohle on Thursday April 15, 2021 @03:29PM (#26825094)

This falls under misappropriation which does not require the reader to any relationship to the company being traded, only material, non-public information.

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by TheCoelacanth on Thursday April 15, 2021 @03:39PM (#26825219)

I'm not aware of any case law finding that Congress using their knowledge is misappropriation. Do you have any examples to the contrary?

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by tomcam on Thursday April 15, 2021 @03:23PM (#26825013)

Well they aren't legally insiders because... they made the rules.

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Re:Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress by TheCoelacanth on Thursday April 15, 2021 @03:34PM (#26825139)

Not really, they aren't insiders because when courts interpreted the rather vague laws against fraud in the context of securities trading, they didn't interpret Congress trading based on knowledge received in their job as fraud.

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