Langevin's Stock Purchase in Brother's Company: Questionable At Best - Dylan Conley
Dylan Conley, Guest MINDSETTER™
Langevin's Stock Purchase in Brother's Company: Questionable At Best - Dylan Conley
Members of Congress should not be allowed to trade individual stocks.
Letting the people that write the laws that impact stock value own those same stocks is like letting referees bet on games. It’s not fair when Congressmembers, who get to study classified information, get to invest in the same market as you and me. They know more than we do.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIt is illegal for members of Congress to trade stocks based on non-public information, but they have access to all sorts of non-public information, and yet, they still trade stocks. Earlier this year, U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) stepped down from his position as Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee while the FBI investigated allegations of insider trading because he had sold stocks just before the Coronavirus made the market plummet.
Burr claimed he made his decisions based on public information, but he undeniably knows non-public information as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee. How is this fair? How can we trust that Congress holds our best interest as their priority when they can tweak a policy here or there and that completely changes the value of their portfolio? Why do we let people with classified information compete in the stock market against our own pension plans?
If you think Burr is an outlier, think again. Senators Kelly Loeffler, Jim Inhofe, and Diane Feinstein each sold stock before COVID collapse of the market. It's almost like Congresspeople know what’s going to happen before we do.
Let’s take a close look at some of Langevin’s other stock trading activity since 2019. On March 4th, 2019, he sold between $250,000-$500,000 worth of Alibaba stock even though the news that day was about how the Chinese corporation just entered into a partnership with Office Depot. Selling that much stock on a day with good news seems strange, until you realize that a couple weeks later the Congress introduced a bill that crushed Alibaba’s stock value.
In March of 2020, Langevin bought Airline and Cruise stocks immediately before voting to bail those industries out. Earlier this summer, Langevin bought Zillow stock on a Friday, voted to bail out the housing market that Tuesday, and by the end of the week Zillow had jumped 8% in value and he sold his stock. It appears Langevin made between $4,000-$8,000 in a week’s time by bailing out the housing market.
Langevin isn’t simply a “day trader” he’s the “Day Before Trader.”
When members of Congress are allowed to buy and sell individual stocks, we will never know if they’re putting their own financial interests ahead of the best interest of the country. Its time for that conflict of interest to end.
Supporting Materials
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52668126
Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (destroyed Alibaba Value): https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s945
Cares Act (Bailed out Cruise and Airlines)
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748
Emergency Housing Protections and Relief Act (Bailed out housing)
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7301
Zebra Contract Award: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/83fa8c96a22e59fa16109a14c6847a04/view#classification
Zebra Public Announcement: http://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/usps-selects-zebra-technologies-as-next-generation-mobile-delivery-device-provider/
Disclosure with Zebra Buy and Alibaba Sell: https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2019/10038844.pdf
Disclosure with Airlines, Cruises: https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/ptr-pdfs/2020/20016547.pdf
https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/ptr-pdfs/2020/20017186.pdf
Disclosure with Zillow: https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/ptr-pdfs/2020/20016934.pdf