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Public (Self)-Service: Illegal Trading on Confidential Congressional Information

by Andrew George

Senators, according to a recent study, make extraordinary investors. During the five-year period of the study, senators (and their spouses and dependent children) who traded securities beat market averages by more than 10% per year. That is an impressive number, considering that it is twice what another study found to be the average trading profits of corporate insiders. Barring a “sixth-investing-sense” among members of Congress, numbers such as these indicate that some members of Congress, across both political parties,4 are playing the stock market with a “stacked deck”—a deck they bring to the table. In other words, perhaps some members are trading securities on the basis of inside knowledge of upcoming legislative events.

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  1. Once I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new feedback are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I get 4 emails with the identical comment. Is there any way you may take away me from that service? Thanks!

    January 30, 2012

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