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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

That’s the joke. The SEC pursues the mostly harmless while letting the sharks go free. Did they do anything about naked short selling of Overstock stock? Nope, and now that it’s happened again and retail took advantage of a bad trade, the rules suddenly change “to protect the little guy.”

It’s disingenuous at a minimum, and crony capitalism when taken to the maximum.

Are they doing anything about Nancy Pelosi (her husband Paul to be specific) buying Tesla calls before bills were brought forth with generous EV charging network subsidies? “Nothing to see here.” (Nothing against Pelosi and not intended as whataboutism, picked because it was top of mind from some research today and the disparity of enforcement)

Edit: Pump and dump schemes absolutely should not be supported. Piling into a short squeeze is not a pump and dump scheme.

Edit 2: https://i.imgur.com/SZJ9XEa_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&...

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> Nothing against Pelosi

Nothing against Pelosi? If that's as it appears to me (trading on insider information, by a person in a position of public trust no less) she needs to be heavily fined, in prison, or both.

I’m not saying she didn’t do something wrong, my intent was that my comment wasn’t partisan in nature. This is unacceptable regardless of party.

Congress had an exemption up until recently on all insider trading so it wasn't illegal for her. It's good to write the rules.

Looking at the starting and retiring net worth of a Congress person is a bit painful.

What makes me ill is that the insider trading rule makes sense. It protects congress from lawsuits when their mutual fund or ETF owns Tesla and they benefit by enacting laws that benefit their constituents, but that have downsides for others.

The rule however assumes that congress conducts themselves ethically, and evidently that is clearly not the case.

Allowing insider trading by politicians makes no sense. Ethical politicians place their assets into blind trusts. Unfortunately that isn't mandatory.

My spouse was an elected official in California, and we had to fill out Form 700; diversified mutual funds didn't need to be disclosed as long as they met the definitions (at least 100 investors, at least 15 issuers, not a sector fund). Of course, Form 700 doesn't apply to federal officials elected to represent California; but a similar disclosure requirement / duty to avoid apparent conflict of interest would be nice at the federal level.

It should be pretty simple for most elected officials to dump their publicly traded stock and get into a diversified mutual fund before they start campaigning and while they hold office. For those who have concentrated holdings that are hard to dump, they could put it into a blind trust or whatever. Office holders really shouldn't be making a lot of trades; equity based compensation aside (either of their spouse or if they're a part time officer where those still exist, and have a part time job with equity based compensation)

There are ways to deal with that. For example, I’m not allowed to buy or sell my own company’s shares outside of specific trading windows, but index funds are fine as long as the company represents less than 10% of the fund.

There's a WORLD of a difference between a mutual fund or ETF that owns Tesla, and buying call options on the stock, that make money only if the stock moves in a definite time-frame. We have other examples too, for example Kelly Loeffler, whose husband is head honcho of the NYSE, sold a lot of stocks just before the Feb/March crash in 2020, based on insider information that she got from attending the Congress briefings that showed it was not just a flu.

Common misconception, as most didn't hear much about it beyond its initial signing. Congress still has that exemption. I believe you're referring to the STOCK Act, of 2012, which cramped their style for a little over a year.

In 2013, Senator Harry Reid introduced S.716, which after 14 seconds of discussion was passed by unanimous consent. Its net effect was to make the rest of STOCKS untrackable, and therefore unreportable and unenforceable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act#Amendment

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/17749...

Congress is famous for being extremely lucky in their trades. Somehow their timing is way better than for common plebes, there's much research around about it. But of course laws are for the little people, including insider trading laws, so...

I bought TSLA around about the same time she must have, with no insider knowledge.

Honestly I think we need some new rules about securities and elected officials, but the obvious ones would not cover a sitting president patronizing his own failing businesses in order to increase revenues using taxpayer money.

We want rules against people buying stock or taking bribes from oil companies, but nothing about using your own company to 'provide services' to federal officials. But even if you transfer control of your holdings to a third party, you still know what was in there when you started. And if 'what was in there' was your nephew's business...

Disgusting but not surprising take from the Nasdaq CEO. A few managers with access to billions are able to coordinate their funds because they own them all, but a diverse mob of retail investors couldn't do this up until now because they're all subject to game-theoretic prisoner's dilemma forces.

It's only because so many people are rallying around the ideological worth of the stock that keeps the price from crashing. As the fad dissipates naturally over time, its ideological worth will decline and bring the price down with it. Time is on the side of the hedge funds.

I'm not sure the decline will be gradual. Also, prices unsupported by the actual company's fundamentals will now absolutely bring in more shorts, perhaps even the same people that got squeezed on the way up, recouping their losses and maybe profiting at the expense of retailers that wait too long.

I think a few hedge fund managers might be about to learn about Schelling points in a very visceral way.

> Did they do anything about naked short selling of Overstock stock?

http://investors.overstock.com/news-releases/news-release-de...

The point is that the SEC’s measures are half hearted at best.

The purpose of the system is what it does, and the capital market operators, institutional participants, and regulators prioritize their interests. This exercise is simply exposing those efforts to daylight for all to see.

Dr Byrne from Overstock puts it better then I can (from your citation): “The SEC once again opts for nerf penalties for financial rapists.”

If one thinks WSB or retail in this are the problem, you haven’t been paying attention.

> Did they do anything about naked short selling of Overstock stock? Nope, and

> The point is that the SEC’s measures are half hearted at best.

I have no love for the SEC, but it sure did sound like you said they didn't do anything about it when they clearly did.

> If one thinks WSB or retail in this are the problem, you haven’t been paying attention.

More shifting use of "you" in context. It'll be interesting if we can teach an AI to understand these types of confusing and conflicted statements.

It's crony capitalism at minimum, and absolutely disgustingly oppressive at the maximum. These people seemingly are physically unable to let "the little guy" have even a whiff of financial independence.

"Pump and dump schemes absolutely should not be supported. Piling into a short squeeze is not a pump and dump scheme."

LOL. Give me a break.

This is ___100%___ a P&D scam. They can squeeze shorts because they target trash stocks of failing businesses (you know -- the stocks that get shorted), then create a positively ridiculous story about a value proposition. A bunch of moron retail investors on Reddit aren't going to do shit to squeeze shorts, but they're the front for a couple of very well financed players.

But...something something Nancy Pelosi. Christ. Yeah, she's really scamming the system playing a stock at all time highs. Real elite moves.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Yes, GME's current price does not reflect the value of the company. That being said, anybody that feels that staying involved in a short play involving a profitable retailer with significant activist investor interest when short interest is exceeding 100% is a good idea shouldn't be allowed within 10 miles of a risk management office. If someone's definition of pump and dump scheme includes investors making awful decisions and contractually obligating themselves to handing their money over to other people at insane losses, then this is one. For the rest of the world that is willing to call a bad trade what it is (even when the winners have quite the potty mouth), it doesn't even come close.

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