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Many members of Congress have managed to rack up a net worth of millions, despite the yearly congressional salary being only $174,000. The primary means to achieve this by members on both sides of the aisle is stock trading.
Much has been made about the shocking success many members have seen picking stocks, with many assuming this is because members of Congress often have high security clearance and are able to trade using information that isn't publicly available yet, like which companies will get large defense contracts from the Pentagon or how much taxpayer money will be invested in things like energy and AI.
Financial planner Richard Rosso pointed out that what this essentially amounts to is insider trading. He called out the hypocrisy of all this, saying, "If you did it and you were investigated, you would get fined, you would end up in prison, but they get away scot-free. That's absolutely not right."
So how do regular everyday investors and traders who aren't privy to high-level congressional intel balance the scales? Many have turned to platforms like Autopilot and Dub Advisors, which allow investors to simply copy the trades of top-performing congressional stock pickers.
Sounds like the perfect solution, right? If they get rich, we all get rich too. Well, not quite. Rosso pointed out a major flaw with these platforms, saying, "You still are not going to be able to buy it at the same time the Pelosis buy it or any other members of Congress. You might ride the coattails, but it's not the same."
Essentially, since there will always be a delay between when Nancy Pelosi makes a trade and you're able to copy it, you'll never be able to see the maximized investment returns that she does.
Rosso went on to say that the only real way to completely level the playing field in an ethical way is to impose the same insider trading restrictions that everyone else is subject to on members of Congress and then strictly enforce them.