If they are using insider information so effectively, anyone is free to copy their moves, no?
EDIT: That they only report 45 days after the fact is indeed a significant difference from company insiders and severely limits how well someone could profit by following along.
If I want to buy/sell Boeing stock and I'm a Senator, I should have to publicly file that intention three months in advance, and not be able to undo it. Those filings should immediately be public in a data feed.
I'd expect to see a "Congressional stock purchases index fund" arise, and it'd be fascinating to see how it performed.
Stuff like https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/11/politics/rand-paul-wife-stock... - "oops, forgot to disclose my stock moves for over a year!" - should be punishable by loss of trading ability and confiscation of the assets (not just profits) involved.
The "Congressional stock purchases index fund" would underperform though https://www.investopedia.com/tiktokers-track-lawmakers-perso...
> Academic research revealed that senators' stock purchases underperformed the benchmark during six-month intervals by 17 basis points between 2012 and March 2020
Only follow the trades of those in leadership, give special attention to transactions involving defense contractors by members of the Committee on Armed Services, etc.
I don't doubt that Congress has its share of confident morons to skew the numbers downwards, but you might be able to identify people who somehow manage to make better moves.
"Day of" should be the rule. Basically, have them trade in the public eye. You could subscribe to congressional stock feeds to see what they're personally buying and selling as it happens.
Letting them do "day of" doesn't really help; if you know Boeing's gonna get the contract at 3:00pm you could just do the buy at 2:59pm. No one has time to react.
When Boeing thinks about inking a contract, they crow about it. By the time the contract is signed, any changes in the stock are reflected.
"Three months without the ability to cancel" is a very naive solution and creates a whole new host of problems while not really solving much.
I just don't think Congress has much in the way of insider information most of the time. Antitrust litigation would be one example where they do, but what else? Company insiders by contrast almost by definition have insider information.
If they're long the market and then boosting the market... I mean, isn't that what we want? You'd have to go further than a blind trust even and ban owning equities at all.
Yeah... 45 days after the trade (per https://www.investopedia.com/tiktokers-track-lawmakers-perso...). Not to mention that both dominant parties don't take their responsibilities seriously (https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-staff-violated-stoc...), and that information can be filed on paper so sleuths have a much harder time digging through the data to spot suspicious trades (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/04/action-alert-stock-...).
An effective law would require all elected representatives to identify themselves and their close relatives (i.e. parents, siblings and children) as such to their banks and brokers, with the banks and brokers having to maintain an instant feed exposing all trades executed on the accounts of these people.