Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19 | Hacker News Reader

Senator dumped up to $1.6M of stock after reassuring public on Covid-19

propublica.org

116 pointsAndrewBissell38 comments

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I have submitted an insider trading complaint to the SEC, https://www.sec.gov/tcr

In their list of categories describing the person being reported, Member of Congress is not included.

In their list of categories describing the reporting person, Member of Congress is included.

Huh.

I believe congress is exempt from insider trading laws.

Edit: looks like I was wrong. Thanks for the links.

I don't think so. Most recently there was a congressman from an east coast state convicted of same or at least similar, as I recall. I might recall incorrectly.

Chris Collins (R-NY).

According to the STOCK Act of 2012 [0], members of Congress are not exempt from insider trading laws.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act

And check out the only 3 senators that voted against the stock act... that's right, this guy is on of them.

They were (exempt) but they passed a law to make it illegal though I believe they watered down. Previous to the law it wasn't illegal for them to do insider trading.

There is a rather amusing line in his wikipedia entry [0], given the current context:

> In fall 2008, during that year's financial crisis, Burr said he was going to an ATM every day and taking out cash because he thought the financial system was going to soon collapse. In April 2009, in response to press about his experience, Burr told NC public radio station WFAE that he would do the same thing again next time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Burr

i've been pulling out my max cash withdrawal limit from cash machines every day since we hit 10% down in the markets. of course cash is probably useless when a bank run does happen, but it does give you a sense of safety and is something you can simply redeposit.

My guess: regardless of which party wins the presidency in November, there will be as much accountability for this senator and others like him as there was for the George W. Bush administration officials who lied the country into war and implemented a program of torture. That is to say, none whatsoever.

Fun fact: AOC and Ted Cruz have cosponsored legislation banning Congress folks from lobbying for life. I’m unaware of the current status, but people still work across the aisle and not all hope is lost. We must push on. This (excellent) reporting by ProPublica is part of that.

The calls for the senator to face a grand jury coming from some Congresspeople are encouraging. I'll still be pleasantly surprised if he serves a single day in prison.

2 months ago a republican congressman was sentenced for insider trading, so the SEC/FBI do catch these people sometimes https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/17/former-re...

> Burr was one of just three senators who in 2012 opposed the bill that explicitly barred lawmakers and their staff from using nonpublic information for trades and required regular disclosure of those trades. In opposing the bill, Burr argued at the time that insider trading laws already applied to members of Congress. President Barack Obama signed the bill, known as the STOCK Act, that year.

What a piece of work.

[Violent suggestion deleted.]

I believe the gentleman's actions should be submitted to the relevant ethics committee.

Harumph.

This appears to have been quite a thing.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA): https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly-loeffler-dumped-mill...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): https://twitter.com/justinmclachlan/status/12408449876143882...

Just because he reports factual information about the market, does not mean he has to believe those facts or even act upon them. Actors are allowed to be irrational.

Furthermore, even were he to believe in the long term market prospects, doesn’t mean that he has to continue taking the risk in the short term. It’s okay to diversify your portfolio in a time of crisis, even if you have no current knowledge that things will change for the worse. For all you know, things will change for the better and you would miss out on gains because one company you were not investing in did better than predicted.

As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he had and has plenty of current knowledge. He reports actual facts to donors/supporters and counter-facts to the public. About what we all would expect from him.

I might be missing something here, but how does the knowledge pandemic and about the severity of the disease about qualify as insider information? I guess this guy can be accused of not expressing his real beliefs to the public (to contain the panic as he would surely argue), but that is not the same as insider trading.

He did express his concerns about the economy to a small group of donors. He also was one of only 3 senators to vote against the stock act, making things like this illegal.

This reminds me of Matt Levine's column from 16 March [0]

"Is the coronavirus securities fraud?

I wrote on Friday that, because everything is securities fraud, the novel coronavirus is securities fraud"

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/market...

This seems like a witch hunt for what is a conflict of interest.

Either you have certain roles, i.e. members of congress, that can't hold shares at all. Or you allow them to trade and then only go after very specific insider trades. I.e. at a business to business level.

But going after an individual for "knowing" how the entire economy will move is a stretch imo.

Or you don't try to frame this as a false choice line you did here - and you prosecute people listening to classified briefings and then immediately illegally trading and benefiting from it.

Every company has already figured out policies to avoid accusations of impropriety.

Its a solved problem.

Is this not insider trading? He made decisions based on info not available to general public.

Link to SEC insider trading complaint site https://www.sec.gov/tcr

That's not the definition of insider trading.

Ok, I’ll bite. If that is not the definition of insider trading what is?

One additional element is that said information is obtained through privileged access (i.e. you acquire it in an official capacity and are expected to keep it confidential; if you overhear a random conversation, the information may not be available to the general public, but you can still trade on it).

Pretty sure Burr's access to the information would qualify under this definition.

Smart guy. I'd be about 30% richer today if I did the same.

No you wouldn't. Everyone would be in your boat. He has info you did not which is how he did it. It's not smart. It's just unscrupulous. It may also turn out to be really, really dumb. At least I hope so.

He can buy back in at a lower level and probably double his gains. You can't say he made a bad decision.

Financially it could be, and i hope it is, a disaster. Insider trading is a thing. Saying one thing about privileged information in public while trading as though the opposite is true could well come back and bite him very, very hard.

Dumb. Corrupt. Doesn't matter how common crime is for it to be worth prosecuting.

If you did it on public info. Fine. Redistribution of wealth from those who did not to you for being faster. If you did on information you then lied about in public, in an official capacity. Rot in jail you crook.

Even if he "gets away with it" no sane individual would ever trust him with anything ever again.

to be fair, anyone watching china cases emerge in january should have done the same thing. hindsight is 20/20 and all, but when china didn't lock their borders down right away should have been a major warning sign

The time to buy is when blood is dripping down your screen.

(blood is not dripping down your screen yet, wait for the layoffs and bankruptcies and bailouts)

How is this legal

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