Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks

Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by andrewmutz on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @12:42PM (#46137488)

Someone really needs to do a meta-analysis of these results because a paper from a few years ago showed that members of congress underperform at stock picking:

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26975/w269...

Both papers could be true if congresspeople are worse than the public at picking stocks, but congressional leaders are just better than the average congressperson

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by bumby on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @12:52PM (#46137621)

I didn’t get a chance to read the entire NBER paper, but an important nuance is that it takes an industry-normalized perspective.

It could be possible that someone in Congress has insider information about a specific industry that helps them, but not about a specific stock. For example, if I knew about specific legislation that would impact auto manufacturers I may have a better idea to get in or out of that sector without necessarily knowing if Ford will do better than GM.

To your point about meta-analysis it would also be useful to know if members are worse than normies at picking industries as well.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by lazyeye on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @02:35PM (#46138921)

It would also be interesting to compare overall stock-picking "ability“ across party lines.

Real-estate investing is another corruption vector. One way to bribe a politician is to sell them a house at a million dollar discount. The optics become that the politician is a “savvy real-estate investor".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by James_K on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @12:44PM (#46137516)

If this were the case, they would be just as good before becoming leaders. Yet the 47% increase only happens when they gain a position of power.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by harvey9 on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @01:06PM (#46137803)

Any chance they worked really hard for that promotion and it paid multiple dividends? Just kidding.

[ Parent | on HN ]