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Despite broad public support against this practice, members of Congress invest in the stock market.
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In two years, people invested at least $55 million, mimicking the portfolios of members of Congress.
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The value of Pelosi’s reported trades increased 45% in 2023. Crenshaw’s value increased 41%.
An app that allows its users to trade like members of Congress and leading investors just surpassed $100 million in total investments. Despite the success, the app’s co-founders remain adamant they hope Congress will exclude itself from trading.
Released in January 2023, Autopilot pulls trading data submitted by members of Congress and allows users to copy their trades. Since the passage of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in 2012, members of Congress have been required to report each of their investments and those of their immediate family members within 45 days or face fines.
The app also allows its users to mimic investments made by prominent hedge fund managers such as Michael Burry, the subject of the 2015 film “The Big Short,” through their government-mandated 13F filings.
Chris Josephs, co-founder of the platform, runs the popular “Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” on X, Business Insider said the app easily surpassed the $100 million mark in trading on Monday, with more than $55 million coming from transactions copying transactions filed with Congress.
The app does not allow its users to imitate every member of Congress. Instead, it offers four lawmakers to imitate – Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Dan Crenshaw, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Dan Goldman – as well as a selection of stocks from the “10 best politician traders based on their performance in 2022.”
Josephs said Crenshaw and Pelosi’s portfolios – which the congresswoman said are managed by her husband Paul Pelosi – are the most popular.
Statistics in the app show that the value of Pelosi’s reported trades increased by 45% in 2023. Crenshaw’s value increased by 41%.
When asked for comment on the matter, Corry Schiermeyer, a spokeswoman for Crenshaw’s office, told Business Insider that her boss “is not a millionaire and has barely invested anything in the market.”
Representatives from Pelosi’s office declined Business Insider’s request for comment.
The fight against stock trading in Congress
In late 2021, Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, announced that she opposed a ban on stock trading for members of Congress and their families, which sparked massive public protests and led to her changing her position on the issue.
Several members of Congress – both Republicans and Democrats – tried unsuccessfully to ban the practice in 2022. In the next session of Congress in 2023, a group of Democratic senators introduced a similar bill, but it remains stuck in committee.
“That’s why we’re doing this,” said Josephs, the Autopilot spokesman. “Frankly, part of it is to keep putting pressure on them. We’re not going to just walk away.”
Donald Sherman, deputy director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, thinks the app is a “smart idea.” He is not surprised that many politicians have more successful trading portfolios than the average investor.
“If I look at it very generously, their entire job consists of careful study of market trends and economic factors, as well as experience of market movements, which I think most traders need and would envy,” he said.
As Autopilots Josephs has it: If you can’t beat them, join them.
Read the original article on Business Insider
