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Comment by adamdusty | Hacker News Reader

The article glosses over huge details. It sounds like he bought options back in May and some time between May 26 and June 21, he used the position to sell an options contract which the buyer exercised on June 21. I'm not highly educated on the market, but it doesn't seem that unusual to me.

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If you want to be a US Congressman, especially one on a cyber subcommittee, you shouldn't be trading options in individual tech stocks, period.

Stick your money in an index retirement fund like the rest of the plebes.

Correct - you get your spouse to make the trades.

Like Pelosi's husband and Hillary Clinton as well.

Yep, insider trading is the only bipartisan thing in Congress these days.

A new Washington Consensus ;)

I thought they passed a bill to make it not illegal for Reps to do insider trading.

Now you have to find someone to charge them.

Are they just that lazy at plugging loopholes for congressman? I have a hard time believing this works for normal insider trading cases.

Plenty of plebes trading options through Robinhood...

LOL... this is exactly how Congress and governments works for the most part, and I think it is foolish to think that it will ever change. One of the hardest things to accept is that we live in a dog eat dog world, and that by and large people will put their own interests before the interests of others. Many people actually think it is admirable that people will go to such lengths, and it is an accepted part of reality that with success often comes the apathy of others.

"No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems -- of which getting elected and re-elected are No. 1 and No. 2. Whatever is No. 3 is far behind". - Thomas Sowell

Yeah if the buyer exercised the right to buy the option, the seller has no choice, oftentimes it just "disappears" from their brokerage account and shares show up in the buyer's brokerage account.

It's also possible he planned to roll the option to a future expiry date, but forgot to get around to it, resulting in the option landing ITM (In the Money) which allowed the buyer to exercise their option to buy.

Details are kind of beside the point. Like you mentioned he could have had several trading strategies. He also could have changed his mind based on insider information. That's why I believe it would be much better to require politicians to file a public 10b5-1 type plan for investments.

If you had insider information that you though would adversely impact the price of a stock you’re holding, selling OTM calls against it would not be a valid way to attempt to offload your position. The thesis put forward in the article for why this is a suspect trade doesn’t make any sense, and seems to intentionally be conflating selling stock with being assigned.

The point is “don’t be fucking around with options if you’re a US Congressman trading options in a company regulated by your committee”. I favor the broader “Don’t be fucking around with derivatives or single names if you’re a US Congressperson”

Allowing politicians to trade stock is unusual in the "weird" sense. But certainly not unusual in the "uncommon" sense, see (1) from 3 months ago.

Insider trading laws are awful, specifically because they only restrict a specific group of people with "insider" knowledge from trading. Removing information removes efficiency (especially when you selectively pick who can act on the information).

(1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26821601

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