Report: Members of Congress Made Eye-Watering Amount in Stock in 2023, Up to $10 Million Each on Average
If an investor has one investment that dramatically outperformed expectations, then he would be considered exceptionally lucky and that would be that.
If he often did well on his stocks and trades, then most would believe that he knew the market well or had a great broker.
But when an entire group of people have stocks that routinely outperform expectations and beat the market by 3, 5, or even 10 times?
Then there might be something more going on beneath the surface.
As reported in Fortune, several members of Congress had an excellent year in 2023 when it came to trading their stocks.
Indeed, a full third of the 100 members of Congress who reported financial transactions in 2023 beat the S&P 500 by a significant percentage.
According to a thread on the social media platform X by the stock and options news service Unusual Wales, on average the Republican members of Congress received an 18 percent return on their investments, while Democrat members of Congress received a staggering 33 percent return on their trades.
🚨BREAKING🚨
I have just released the full report on politicians trading in 2023.
Like every year since 2020, US politicians beat the market.
And many in Congress made unusually timed trades resulting in huge gains.
Here are the top performers of 2023. pic.twitter.com/ykf9VICsBw
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 2, 2024
Fortune noted that the discrepancy between the Democrats and Republicans may be due to the fact that Republicans have “large parts of their portfolio in financials, oil, and commodities — all of which had rough years.”
Former Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi raised the value of her portfolio by a staggering 65 percent. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine raised her portfolio by 55 percent. But the highest returns were from New York Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins, who was up 238 percent.
One thing Fortune noted in their report was that members of Congress were exempt from some insider trading rules, which might possibly account for some of the phenomenal success members of Congress have enjoyed on the stock market over recent years..
Unusual Whales calculated that members of Congress earned an upwards of $1 billion trading on the stock market.
Even if that amount were divided evenly among those 100 members of Congress, that would still give $10 million to each member.
And, as Unusual Whales explained, Democratic lawmakers saw much more of that $1 billion than did Republican lawmakers.
While trading lawmakers might have claimed they were merely lucky, or had excellent brokers, when they have routinely beaten the market by 3, 5, or even 10 times, then their luck might appear rather fishy.
After all, if their people have achieved these returns for them, then why hasn’t every American in the country used the fortunate members of Congress’ stock brokers?
It might be, then, that some of these members of Congress have bent the already lax rules regarding insider trading further than would be entirely ethical.
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