Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

They should have to report their positions well in advance.

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.

View on HN

How about just reporting trades within a day or two of when they occur? As opposed to reporting months after the fact? Just publicize the order flow. This way there's no weaseling out of the fact that yes you did make such and such a trade literally a day before some government announcement.

because if you have to report it ahead of time, it neutralizes any advantage you might have from the insider information.

You mean a day or two in advance? Or post trade? Post trade is not good, but pre trade should still be able to quell the insider advantage.

With today’s technology, I do not see why trades cannot be reported immediately.

"We will put together a panel to put together a committee to review these technologies. Upon sufficiently reviewing said technologies we will institute new rules. Current target is by 2050"

True, in advance would be better.

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

All sorts of trading strategies you could try out on a full, in-advance data feed, though.

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.

No. Three months in advance is just as stupid as a year past. It gives people opportunity to manipulate prices.

"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.

Three months in advance without the ability to cancel it subjects them to risk if they're trying to trade on insider info; the info could leak, change, be affected by something unexpected, etc.

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.

These sort of things are like driving container ships, they're big, slow, and their moves are heavily telegraphed.

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.

Nice idea, but for this to work, you'd also have require that previously announced intended trades MUST be followed through within a given window. Without out, this is way to game stocks without spending anything at all.

Yes, that's why I said "not be able to undo it".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com