by amin on 7/21/21, 4:19 PM with 178 comments
by boulos on 7/21/21, 4:49 PM
There was some reporting on this issue more broadly when Senator Burr seemed to place trades directly due to coronavirus information, which included Pelosi’s husband’s trades.
Edit to add: I would concur with others that we probably need to restrict trading for politicians and their family, the same way we do insiders at corporations. Index funds okay, specific stocks or perceived competition, no.
by takeda on 7/21/21, 4:30 PM
by legitster on 7/21/21, 4:49 PM
As others online have pointed out, despite an above average year, her portfolio is still underperforming an S&P 500 index fund with the dividends reinvested.
Should politicians be forced to put their assets in a blind trust while in office? Yeah, probably. But I don't think I will indict Pelosi's slightly above average year of investments as evidence of anything in particular.
by subsubzero on 7/21/21, 4:44 PM
by whoopdedo on 7/21/21, 4:38 PM
by bagacrap on 7/21/21, 4:54 PM
Strange to compare against sp500 when her holdings are more aligned with NASDAQ, up ~50% from last June.
by mullingitover on 7/21/21, 5:20 PM
I mean, any other year and that'd be extraordinary, but I'm just some schmuck who put my 401k mostly in a high growth index fund and I got over 70% last year. I wasn't even trying.
by metabagel on 7/21/21, 4:53 PM
The optics are bad, for sure.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-10/pelosi-hu...
by gigel82 on 7/21/21, 4:47 PM
by sceew on 7/21/21, 9:42 PM
Even if you lose money, insider trading is still insider trading. Congress + senators 100% receive insider information. Even if its not near-term merger announcements or big federal contracts - they still have an extremely advantaged position and access to information that the general public doesn't have.
Its ridiculous that they can trade individual stocks, yet alone options.
They should be restricted from buying individual stocks, and should only be allowed to buy mutual funds and ETFs at a minimum. Pretty much any employee on Wall Street (even if "back-office") has similar restrictions.
I don't even know why this is a question - the optics of short-term levered bets from elected officials (or family of) is terrible. Completely ruins any resemblance of "public service."
Even with this, it might not be enough. Elected officials could still buy the TQQQ ETF (3x leverage on NASDAQ) prior to a stimulus bill passing. It would be too onerous to not allow any stock exposure, but maybe they should be required to disclose trades in real-time vs. at the end of every quarter.
by KETpXDDzR on 7/21/21, 5:18 PM
IMHO the whole system needs a reformation. You should only be allowed to invest long-term, at least one month, probably years. Day trading and option contracts enable illegal insider trading.
by analog31 on 7/21/21, 5:04 PM
by whywhywhywhy on 7/21/21, 4:54 PM
Seems like the system is built in a way that encourages them to insider trade and throw kickbacks around to maximize their wealth while in power and after.
by jessaustin on 8/2/21, 11:51 AM
by TrispusAttucks on 7/21/21, 5:44 PM
"Most of Pelosi's gains are quite interesting, given the timing of her plays. For example, she was able to get into TSLA, DIS around stimulus news, NVDA before American Semiconductor funding was announced, among a long list of interesting picks. Mr. Whale leaves it to the reader to check her transactions and the news around her purchases (all available for free on the platform). She also timed the NFLX buys on June 18th perfectly. It was released on July 14th that NFLX is entering the videogame space, causing the stock to rally significantly."
by vidoc on 7/21/21, 5:22 PM
by dpierce9 on 7/21/21, 5:51 PM
by boulos on 7/21/21, 4:58 PM
Basically, by assuming that all the trades were the maximum of the range (and per trade), it’s overweighting the PayPal and Crowdstrike performance and downweighting the MSFT and GOOG “under performance” (they bought GOOG near the top?).
I don’t follow why most of the Feb 20 options aren’t being valued either. Those were the “scandalous” trades. And they were all (IIRC), 1-year out LEAPs or something. Seemed a reasonable thing at the time! (“People are panicking, buy now and assume it’s back to normal in a year”).
Has someone done a more careful analysis? (At the very least, I strongly doubt that the positions would be the same between the crowd strike and MSFT shares, and that the MSFT shares were purchased alongside the MSFT options as a hedge).
Edit: And umm, all the options trades are listed explicitly as the number of contracts purchased. So people can easily look up the VWAP or similar for the purchase date and get a real number...
by jb775 on 7/21/21, 6:02 PM
And they shouldn't be allowed to take jobs/money (including "speaking fees", a.k.a. bribes) from publicly owned corporations for 15 years after leaving public office.
by DevKoala on 7/21/21, 5:46 PM
I have made a lot of money following her trades, particularly when she jumped in on Crowdstrike right before the government security hacks.
This lady can tell the future. /s
by c7DJTLrn on 7/21/21, 5:50 PM
by abeppu on 7/21/21, 6:23 PM
Not only should politicians not be incentivized to select policies which benefit them specifically, but they should be incentivized to select policies which materially benefit the population overall.
by grillvogel on 7/21/21, 4:52 PM
"Her husband, Kurt DelBene, is Chief Digital Officer and EVP of Corporate Strategy, Core Services Engineering and Operations at Microsoft Corporation,[33] and led the effort to fix the Healthcare.gov website at the request of President Barack Obama.[34]"
by cgb223 on 7/21/21, 5:44 PM
by misiti3780 on 7/21/21, 4:58 PM
by sam0x17 on 7/21/21, 5:01 PM
by anonymouse008 on 7/21/21, 5:40 PM
by robbmorganf on 7/21/21, 5:11 PM
THEN maybe making money from stock options is actually better than taking money from lobbyists? Lawmakers can make money from both hurting and helping companies, so it doesn't create a particular incentive to go out and help PARTICULAR companies (that said, there is an incentive to create volatility, which isn't great). Meanwhile, lobbying tends to advantage some of the least ethical companies (e.g. Opiods, fossil fuels) because the only incentive is to HELP the company at the expense of customers.
To be clear, I don't think it's right for lawmakers to make any more by virtue of their position than the salaries set forth by the law. I'm just saying that of the several unethical ways they can make money, stock options have incentives least misaligned with the public good.
by swalsh on 7/21/21, 4:52 PM
by wyldfire on 7/21/21, 4:41 PM
by calebm on 7/21/21, 5:08 PM
by kmonad on 7/21/21, 5:31 PM
by UncleOxidant on 7/21/21, 5:32 PM
by jeffbee on 7/21/21, 4:47 PM
by robbrown451 on 7/21/21, 4:50 PM
by underseacables on 7/21/21, 4:37 PM
by sentinel on 7/21/21, 5:14 PM
by txsoftwaredev on 7/21/21, 5:35 PM
by redleggedfrog on 7/21/21, 4:46 PM
It takes money to get elected and stay elected, so rich people get elected. While they take advantage of their political power while elected to make money, they also make money after being elected as well, through speaking and other means. The whole point of this process is to make money. Again, American, we like money.
So if you don't like all this, you're a socialist and bad person. Shame on you for being so un-American. Instead get some money and join the party!
by udev on 7/21/21, 4:38 PM
by dukeofdoom on 7/21/21, 5:00 PM
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nancy-pelosi-crime-family/
by renewiltord on 7/21/21, 4:37 PM
Reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s remarkable skill trading cattle futures. I suppose great politicians must also be great at reading the market. Incredible talent.
by the_optimist on 7/21/21, 5:53 PM