House/Senate Financial Disclosure Reports

[LC]

Has anyone ever used the congressional financial disclosure reports to source ideas or "coat-tailing" politicians who may have more intimate knowledge of upcoming legislation, financial data, etc. than you and I?

 

If so, curious how you went about it.

[Guest MarkS]

It's an interesting idea.  But the reports are dated.  Nancy Pelosi built a pretty big fortune insider trading years ago. Her and her husband, a hedge fund manager, did so well Congress had to change the rules.  I just looked.up her recent purchases.  The last filed report I could find was from October of 2018.  So I doubt checking those reports would help much. But I could be wrong.

[LC]

Do you know what the disclosure timelines are in relation to a transaction? From the Pelosi item it looked like 2 weeks but I don’t know for sure.

[Guest MarkS]

It's not as big a delay as I thought.  A congressman must file a periodic transaction disclosure form within 30 days of finding out about the transaction but not to exceed 45 days.  https://ethics.house.gov/sites/ethics.house.gov/files/CY%202017%20Instruction%20Guide%20for%20Financial%20Disclosure%20Statements%20and%20PTRs_0.pdf

[LC]

I’d think you can gain some pretty good insight by tracking which congresspeople are members of certain congressional committees (finance, energy, etc.) and investigating their disclosures related to companies in those industries.

[mofozo]

http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-search.aspx

 

 

[LC]

List of committees and members. Subcommittees are provided as well under each committee.

 

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/committees/

 

 

[LC]

Some resources for those who may want to keep an eye on the trading of our totally honest and trustworthy representatives in Congress:

 

https://senatestockwatcher.com/

 

Also, for some research on the topic:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/mutfund/congressional-portfolios-outpacing-the-market-essay.html

 

The study, “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives,” is a real eye-opener. Using the financial disclosures of politicians, the research team built model portfolios and charted their performance. They found that House members “earn statistically significant positive abnormal returns,” outperforming the market by 6 percentage points.

 

Senators do even better, the authors say, citing their own earlier research from 2004. Senate portfolios “show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” with gains that are “both economically large and statistically significant.”

 

[DooDiligence]

Not sure if this fits here but I was wondering how many legislators own businesses that get pushed to the front of the line for assistance?

 

Here's one,

 

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/business/trump-hotel-coronavirus.html