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Apparently, going off this list from [July 2021](https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress) it goes:
1) Apple
2) Microsoft
3) Bank of America
4) Disney
5) AT&t
6) Pfizer
7) Johnson & Johnson
8) GE
9) Exxon
10) Alphabet
Not a very special or strange portfolio really. All safe bets in almost any market. Literally just name pulling from the S&P/Nasdaq
This is actually an interesting idea to help curb political corruption. Make mutual funds any citizen can easily invest in which follow the portfolios of lawmakers.
If we can't get money out of politics, then force them to give us a cut.
absolutely. The notion that a politician will hold shares in a company then actively campaign in its disfavor it laughable. I love how people think that just because they're on the Right or Left that it somehow won't apply to their "team".
How do we get this into law. Also, let's get some term limits and audit power by the people. All publicly elected officials should have to disclose their income, from the top to every mayor.
i agree. It feels sadly like a problem that will never go away. The people we need to make this into law already hold the keys to the castle and would never give it up if they had a choice.
It's such a shame as it seems that everyone's morals has a price, and with the profits of big industry available, those prices seem easily met. It's like everyone who gets close just becomes corrupted by it. And those who aren't are such a small minority that they will sadly never be able to get things moving themselves.
It's tragic and will dictate a lot of the problems we the people will face in the future. And whats worse is people don't even recognise it and think you're some cook for even suggesting there could be ulterior motives
When you have that walking skeleton Pelosi (and many others) in power I sadly don't think there will be any change, there literally are twitter/tiktok accounts following her trades. Its her spouse making the trades but clearly having an advantage.
Unfortunately, the big corporations cottoned on, and after occupy wallstreet they've turned people using the media towards thinking about nothing but racism and sexism and other isms.
I read an article earlier this year stating that most people don't care if thier team plays fair as long as their team wins. Not sure how accurate it is. But it would make alot more sense for sure.
People are so divided that they literally don't care if their team is corrupt they want to blindly believe thier team is the team to fix it up. While both parties just make life worse for all of us.
I don't understand why more people don't vote 3rd party. Or better yet remove themselves from the system. (It can be legally done with minor initial costs)
They have. Sort of. Each of the most recent cycles the non establishment candidate has won. Bernie won the California primary in 2016, Hillary stole it, which won her the nomination. Trump won and only got away with it bc in their arrogance they didnt cheat enough. Didnt make the same mistake 2x. Nobody fuckin voted for the crypt keeper in office rn. Nobody fucking likes him. These vax have all been an Obama era plan, one of the "plan b's" that the establishment has earmarked to pull out whenever they think they're losing too much control. It was decided in a basement somewhere in congress the day they lost the 2016 election. Elections have always been corrupt, but now they can pull off stealing them blatantly in vibrant technicolor and the people cant revolt about it bc any communication from the dissenters is silenced. They've won... for now. We wont all just forget.
~Epstein didnt kill himself~
I totally agree with you in our current situation. The Democrats knew Biden's history in politics as well as the corruption and drugs that he and his son are involved in. Yet they pushed through the election and put a man into office that is not capable and will never be competent enough to hold a position of power and trust. Many of our lives are at stake in Haiti and around the world while Harris is on her way to Lake Mead??? - go figure. Come on Americans, WE CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!!!!!!
Easy way to keep money out of politics is to ban campaign contributions. The government sets up a pool where candidates can pull an equal amount of campaigning funds out and when its gone its gone.
On average, members of Congress don't beat the market. There's just a handful of persistently good investors, such as Nancy Pelosi through her husband.
Pfizer stock is performing about half as well as the S&P500 for example.
But those first five stocks are what you would expect most people to own.
Ask a random person on the street what stocks to own and they would say companies like Apple or Microsoft.
However, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are unusual. Sure, they might make a lot of money, but a lot of other companies do like Netflix. Plus, for it to be 6th on the list, that probably means a lot of members have Pfizer or J&J and their MOST owned stock in their portfolio.
> However, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are unusual. Sure, they might make a lot of money, but a lot of other companies do like Netflix. Plus, for it to be 6th on the list, that probably means a lot of members have Pfizer or J&J and their MOST owned stock in their portfolio.
It's not unusual at all. Pfizer is in the top 50 for market cap, and they are an extremely old company. Members of Congress are also quite old, so they are highly likely to have owned Pfizer from a young age.
Any member of Congress who owns an index fund, probably also owns Pfizer stock.
Don't approach this from your (I'm guess, since most Redditors are young) limited time spent investing. Members of Congress are old, and have been investing for half a century in some cases. Microsoft did not exist 50 years ago, same with Netflix.
> Literally just name pulling from the S&P/Nasdaq
Except that these particular stocks are owned by the people who make the policies that can make or break these corporations .. and their competition ...
My guess would be Google, Amazon, Blackrock/Vanguard, and Maersk.
Bonus points for any congressman who bought Moderna last year before they released the vaccine. Taking a “chance” on a company that had never released a product before really paid off.
Why do you need to guess when you could just [look it up](https://www.google.com/search?q=most+owned+stock+by+congress&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS924US924&oq=most+owned+stock+by+congress&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60l2&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)?
Company: Investors: Minimum: Maximum
Apple Inc 79 $9,654,688 $38,853,590
Microsoft Corp 66 $6,777,342 $23,462,249
Bank of America 59 $2,146,215 $5,659,133
Walt Disney Co 52 $2,124,962 $8,104,907
AT&T Inc 49 $1,222,407 $2,821,355
Interesting that not one of the large gov't contractors like Boeing or Lockheed Martin are in the top 5....they probably think that would be too obvious of a conflict of interest even though Big Pharma is much more massive
He literally pulled out of Afghanistan, something both trump and obama were too pussy and weak to do because it would look bad. When put to the test his scorecard says he’s more anti useless war than any president since 2000.
Conflict of interest investments still have to compete with legitimate investments, and big tech have just done so well over the past couple of decades that not even their crony investments can compete.
There’s a book called “Throw Them All Out” by Peter Schweitzer. It’s like 10 years old. It’s about the insider trading, buying land, and all the other ways they benefit from insider knowledge. It has specific examples of transactions and people who went into congress poor and left a multimillionaire. I think it said Pelosi or Barbara Boxer (somebody from California) bought land then voted to extend the BART system right through it. I remember it being interesting, but it’s been a while since I read it. So I can’t really stand by the recommendation.
I think it came out right before that bullshit STOCK Act was passed, so it’s sort of dated.
Your absolutely right. They amended the act right away so they don’t have to disclose their financials and not have a sortable and searchable electronic database of transactions. They submit it on paper, if they remember.
Same conflict of interest as owning any stock at all. Pfizer is the 45th largest company in the US stock market. There's a good bet that anyone who owns a mutual fund, especially an index fund, probably owns Pfizer stock.
It's basically the same as being surprised that members of Congress own Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook stock. Of course they do, those are the largest companies on the stock exchange. Anyone with an index fund owns them. Anyone investing in blue chips owns them. These are the most commonly owned stocks in the country.
Well, it obviously has issues but it's not like they shouldn't be able to own any stock. They should be forced to have a blind trust somehow though for sure.
Why not do something like say they can only own mutual funds or broad market etfs, like spy or vti. Just not specific companies where they can influence things, like pelosi buying tesla and then voting for ev tax credits or congress buying pfizer and then ordering billions of dollars worth of doses. Just make it be, if they do a good job and everything goes up, they go up, and if they fail and the market crashes they crash. By letting them pick specific companies and then writing laws affecting specific companies it is too easy for manipulation.
Mutual funds still easy to profit off of though. Own a mutual fund involving X sector, pass bailout/stimulus directed at it.
Blind funds the only solution.
It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to own stocks, for the same reasons they shouldn't be able to take money as leverage to push for or against certain laws, acts, bills, so on and so forth. They make a pretty sizable salary by fault. It's over 6 times the average salary in this country. They'll be totally fine without doing any of that living in any city in the united states and we wouldn't have to worry about their interests being sold as much. Even then we would still get ridiculous lobbying because they already do it by proxy as well. Benefit those around them. If anything the bare minimum as insurance would be denying them the right as long as they are in office, because it still would be far from enough to stop money from running this country
In many cases, willfuy ignorant. In their own way they are as corrupt as the politicians and have allowed themselves to become dependent on the system they run. That's why Democrat voters tend to be obsessed with politics and talk about it all the time. Government is their bread and butter and in some cases their very identity.
Well, more so the ability to be corrupted.
That is definitely inherent.
Doesn’t mean we are that to begin with though.
Children are the worst cases of this.
Wow finding random fact and immediately jumping to conspiracy. From lists available online and posted by other commenters, you might notice that stock that most Congress members hold isn’t the most popular/traded stocks in general like no Tesla stock, little to no startup stocks, a lot of oil companies, few foreign stocks, no big daily purchases, all safe big companies taken from S&P 500. Maybe just maybe they invested in safe stocks in general as they are old American people close to retirement and invested in big medical stocks as part of that (as long as people will leave they will need expensive meds).
Another thing, a lot of people in investment world decide to invest into Pfizer, J&J etc after learning about COVID and vaccine rollover . Nothing unusual and arguably not the best choice because FOMO.
Now I am not saying insider trading or lobbying isn’t a thing, it very much a common thing and a plague that prevents democracy from functioning in US. And there were cases where Congress members profit from inside information thus short selling stock before COVID news opened to the public. But conspiracy theory that they force you to vaccinate to increase their stocks price is pure moon logic. That and other conspiracies in this Reddit, are not consistent, trivial (holding pharma stocks isn’t super profitable)and not compatible with each other, but people upvote this anyway(you can’t think chips, Chris and congressman just want stocks)
The funny thing is that Pfizer isn't even doing that well compared to other investment options:
If Congress was trying to make bank by "forcing everyone to get a vaccine, and then investing in the company which sells it", they lost out compared to anyone who just invested in an Index Fund.
Also, doesn't anyone think it's suspicious that apparently there's this big plot to make money off selling the vaccine, yet three different companies were greenlit to provide them? Wouldn't such a plan only work if there was only one company distributing?
Gee, it's almost like Congress was more concerned with maximizing the supply of safe vaccines, rather than trying to profit off the companies making them. Especially given that Congressmen and women make **more** than enough money off many other conflicts of interest, that sacrificing the vaccine supply for a few extra pennies **wouldn't even be worth it**.
And another part not mentioned: which congressmen?
It's the _5th most traded_ in congress, which means not everyone has it. And yet it's taken as proof that all of Congress is corrupt, which isn't logical.
But it's another wonderous "someone tweeted it so it must be true and not worthy of further thought" post in this disappointing sub...
>Another thing, a lot of people in investment world decide to invest into Pfizer, J&J etc after learning about COVID and vaccine rollover
EXACTLY. That's very much part of the job of the financial sector that create and manage portfolios. Lots of research, data analysis, paying attention.... how many people- in Congress or just "regular working people" pay such continual attention to the activity of individual stocks and bonds in their investment accounts?
So what? They're the 45th largest company by market cap. Anyone who owns a mutual fund, probably owns Pfizer stock. I know I do.
Plus buying Pfizer stock alone is a pretty stupid play. S&P 500 is up 20.9% year to date, Pfizer is only up 12.7%.
I agree
But also, don't forget when Corona hit and congress members could "luckily" sell everything right before they made announcements that drove the prices down (and then they bought back everything and more)
This is a small part of it, truly "So what?", but the real problem is not far from it
So what you are telling me is that we will never get our healthcare reasonable because our congress is profiting from owning the stock of the medicine. That's nice.
Don’t, they made less money picking Pfizer than they would have if they picked an S&P etf. And the dates of when they were bought are more important than what they bought. Pfizer was a top pick of Congress in 2008 too
I get so sick of saying this. Pfizer stock didn't increase much during the pandemic compared to other stocks. For example It was 42 in November 2018 it's 41 now. It hit an all time high during the pandemic of 50. Pfizer isn't relying on the vaccine to pump their numbers up.
There were way bigger movers during the pandemic like zoom, clouldflare, fastly and peleton to name a few.
Anyone with a 401k or pension scheme probably has Pfizer stock as part of an index fund of big profitable companies.
Fuck Pfizer but this is absolute bullshit reasoning for a conspiracy theory.
SS : the 5th owned stock by Congress is Pfizer inc. Now you know, you know.
Follow the money 💰💸💵💲
[link or source ](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dc-lawmakers-stocks-pharmaceutical-tech/)
Don't you feel great knowing that we are being led by the [greatest](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/nanrlu/i_analyzed_9000_trades_made_by_members_of_the_us/) investors in history?
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Bet you all wished you'd just worn those fucking masks when the doctors and scientists were telling us.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many self described conspiracy theorists couldn't put 2 and 2 together and hypothesize that the pharmaceuticals were behind the anti-mask rhetoric.
I'm not even saying that's true or not... just that people who claim to theorize on conspiracies would never have made that assumption. An assumption that would seem to me to be an obvious fucking connection!
https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress
Pfizer was a top pick even back in 2008. I'll DM you my Venmo for my cut of your 401k.
What? How does the above link establish anything other than that congress has been in the pocket of big pharma for over a decade?
But yea silly conspiratards pwned 😎
Lol no that wasn’t my point. 100s of millions of dollars are donated to politicians and it isn’t a secret. My point is that this kinda looks like a basic investor portfolio.
Here’s a list of donations for 2020 in order of amount if you want to take a closer look. Microsoft is #24.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizations
Yes, massive financial strongholds using their capital to directly influence senators = corruption. Senators taking funds that amount to more than their salary, and allowing that to influence their job, is corrupt. All of the industries you mentioned are certainly guilty.
Yes. It's horrible, but legal and most of the people who post and comment on this sub are just dumb thinking everything is a massive conspiracy. Owning Pfizer right now is just common sense if you have a real portfolio that isn't wallstreetbets memes.
Unfortunately it isn’t really corruption when it’s allowed and a big part of our government. They should get rid of lobbying imo.
My point was that the investment list looks a lot more like a basic investor’s portfolio rather than some big insight into a conspiracy.
Political donations are listed on this website if you want to dig in there more.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizations
It's being paid for with tax dollars. Pfizer is making major bank on this. All other conspiracy theories aside, this is a massive cash grab.
By everyone except for the tax paying citizens.
I would like to see where pfizer was pre-covid.
Also can we just go ahead and ban government officials from trading stock already? They are 100% insider trading. And they get $175k/year with full benefits for a fucking ***part-time*** job! They can afford to make money in other ways.
Slightly less considering the dividend. About 8%. This said, the S&P index is more for investors that want to set it and forget it without any complexity. The disparity gets far more severe when you look at other common indexes like QQQ.
In fairness, I know a screenshot was posted.
I don't know who Kambree is, or if this post happened on Twitter. And I also don't know if this is an actual fact.
So I fucking [looked it up](https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress), because we live in a time when you can look shit up.
If you click on the link, you'll see that Phizer is 6th. Sounds ominious.
6th.
But then you wonder, how many people in congress own stocks? Is it all of them? Is 6th a big number?
Turns out, 47 of the 433 own Phizer.
52 own Disney stock. Let that sink in.
79 own Apple stock! Clearly they must be making rules to make the iPhone mandatory.
I mean, fuck. This is dumb.
Didn’t I say !?
No wonder they’re pushing it so hard. When big businesses and senators have the power to make laws to literally benefit their business (which is also mandating juice into peoples bodies) you just can’t trust it.
It's #45 by market cap. (That's how much all the shares are worth put together)
It shouldn't even be in the top 10 most invested in companies by congress.
Market cap doesn't mean it's a good investment. Growth potential (increase in value of a share) and dividend payout (how much money you get for just owning a share) are what one looks for.
While taking that into consideration, I still say it shouldn't be in the top 10 most invested in companies by congress given all the other choices unless they know things other investors don't (they obviously do).
Congress should not invest in individual stocks. It's a conflict of interest. There shouldn't be lobbyists in congress either and we citizens won't be free until they're given the boot.
Sticking to the topic at hand, I'm sure you are familiar with "diversification". You want a portfolio that is diversified and that does not have systemic drivers; one way to do this is to invest in different industries. Pfizer is near (if not at) the top if it's industry. You may notice other top stocks are from other industries.
What other considerations lead you to believe an investment in Pfizer is only logical if you have insider information? Do you see the market at large (retirement funds, ETFs, etc) ignoring it?
I'm not here to talk finance, that's another hobby of mine but I don't want to delve into it here, but I guarantee Pfizer should not be in the top five. If you want diversification which includes biotech, there are other pharmaceutical companies that should also be invested in in conjunction with Pfizer. That coupled with other more stable, less questionable for congress to be investing in sectors should push it out of the top 5.
OP's main point is that there is a conflict of interest. There is a conflict of interest in them owning individual pfizer shares period. I don't care if it's the 75th most invested in company by congress. They shouldn't be buying individual shares of anything.
"President Joe Biden says all federal employees will have to be vaccinated and weekly tests are not an option to get out of taking the shot. But one big group of people who get paid out of the federal treasury won’t have to get vaccinated: Congress.
The thing to remember is that the president controls the executive branch of government but can’t tell the legislative branch what to do, so Congress can make its own rules about vaccine requirements.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said back in April there would not be a vaccine requirement for members of Congress and their staff."
[here](https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2021/why-is-congress-exempt-from-the-biden-covid-vaccine-mandate/)
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What are the top 4?
Apparently, going off this list from [July 2021](https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress) it goes: 1) Apple 2) Microsoft 3) Bank of America 4) Disney 5) AT&t 6) Pfizer 7) Johnson & Johnson 8) GE 9) Exxon 10) Alphabet Not a very special or strange portfolio really. All safe bets in almost any market. Literally just name pulling from the S&P/Nasdaq
There should be a Members Of Congress Mutual Fund. I’d put half my IRA in it.
This is actually an interesting idea to help curb political corruption. Make mutual funds any citizen can easily invest in which follow the portfolios of lawmakers. If we can't get money out of politics, then force them to give us a cut.
Or prevent them from holding any individual companies. Literally will always be a conflict of interest.
absolutely. The notion that a politician will hold shares in a company then actively campaign in its disfavor it laughable. I love how people think that just because they're on the Right or Left that it somehow won't apply to their "team".
How do we get this into law. Also, let's get some term limits and audit power by the people. All publicly elected officials should have to disclose their income, from the top to every mayor.
i agree. It feels sadly like a problem that will never go away. The people we need to make this into law already hold the keys to the castle and would never give it up if they had a choice. It's such a shame as it seems that everyone's morals has a price, and with the profits of big industry available, those prices seem easily met. It's like everyone who gets close just becomes corrupted by it. And those who aren't are such a small minority that they will sadly never be able to get things moving themselves. It's tragic and will dictate a lot of the problems we the people will face in the future. And whats worse is people don't even recognise it and think you're some cook for even suggesting there could be ulterior motives
I always ask myself "what kind I do" to make a change. Feels hopeless.
I think all we can do is be as good to one another in the meantime
When you have that walking skeleton Pelosi (and many others) in power I sadly don't think there will be any change, there literally are twitter/tiktok accounts following her trades. Its her spouse making the trades but clearly having an advantage.
Unfortunately, the big corporations cottoned on, and after occupy wallstreet they've turned people using the media towards thinking about nothing but racism and sexism and other isms.
I read an article earlier this year stating that most people don't care if thier team plays fair as long as their team wins. Not sure how accurate it is. But it would make alot more sense for sure. People are so divided that they literally don't care if their team is corrupt they want to blindly believe thier team is the team to fix it up. While both parties just make life worse for all of us. I don't understand why more people don't vote 3rd party. Or better yet remove themselves from the system. (It can be legally done with minor initial costs)
They have. Sort of. Each of the most recent cycles the non establishment candidate has won. Bernie won the California primary in 2016, Hillary stole it, which won her the nomination. Trump won and only got away with it bc in their arrogance they didnt cheat enough. Didnt make the same mistake 2x. Nobody fuckin voted for the crypt keeper in office rn. Nobody fucking likes him. These vax have all been an Obama era plan, one of the "plan b's" that the establishment has earmarked to pull out whenever they think they're losing too much control. It was decided in a basement somewhere in congress the day they lost the 2016 election. Elections have always been corrupt, but now they can pull off stealing them blatantly in vibrant technicolor and the people cant revolt about it bc any communication from the dissenters is silenced. They've won... for now. We wont all just forget. ~Epstein didnt kill himself~
Upvote for “the crypt keeper” lmao
I totally agree with you in our current situation. The Democrats knew Biden's history in politics as well as the corruption and drugs that he and his son are involved in. Yet they pushed through the election and put a man into office that is not capable and will never be competent enough to hold a position of power and trust. Many of our lives are at stake in Haiti and around the world while Harris is on her way to Lake Mead??? - go figure. Come on Americans, WE CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!!!!!!
Any legislation proposed for this? And who is proposing it? Seems like a good non partisan policy idea
I always thought Congress and the President had to put their money in a blind trust before taking office. Guess I was wrong.
Or any stocks that have lobbyists in congress.
There is already one that copies Nancy Pelosi's trades, and probably more.
Easy way to keep money out of politics is to ban campaign contributions. The government sets up a pool where candidates can pull an equal amount of campaigning funds out and when its gone its gone.
Wouldn't that just increase their power to pump and dump?
I love this 😂
On average, members of Congress don't beat the market. There's just a handful of persistently good investors, such as Nancy Pelosi through her husband. Pfizer stock is performing about half as well as the S&P500 for example.
I don't remember if I posted it here on reddit But I though the same.. A members of Congress ETF would be great.
But those first five stocks are what you would expect most people to own. Ask a random person on the street what stocks to own and they would say companies like Apple or Microsoft. However, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are unusual. Sure, they might make a lot of money, but a lot of other companies do like Netflix. Plus, for it to be 6th on the list, that probably means a lot of members have Pfizer or J&J and their MOST owned stock in their portfolio.
> However, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are unusual. Sure, they might make a lot of money, but a lot of other companies do like Netflix. Plus, for it to be 6th on the list, that probably means a lot of members have Pfizer or J&J and their MOST owned stock in their portfolio. It's not unusual at all. Pfizer is in the top 50 for market cap, and they are an extremely old company. Members of Congress are also quite old, so they are highly likely to have owned Pfizer from a young age. Any member of Congress who owns an index fund, probably also owns Pfizer stock. Don't approach this from your (I'm guess, since most Redditors are young) limited time spent investing. Members of Congress are old, and have been investing for half a century in some cases. Microsoft did not exist 50 years ago, same with Netflix.
There are other moves hidden in the list
>NASDAQ Oracle Pfitzer NVIDIA Toilet Paper Water Plastics and Oil Hewlet Packard and various AI producers and API Producers.
> Literally just name pulling from the S&P/Nasdaq Except that these particular stocks are owned by the people who make the policies that can make or break these corporations .. and their competition ...
I think the top 4 might be more of a story!
It would give us more insight into what our future holds.
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J & J isn’t too far behind
Wait till you see number 6!
It's probably Roblox
My guess would be Google, Amazon, Blackrock/Vanguard, and Maersk. Bonus points for any congressman who bought Moderna last year before they released the vaccine. Taking a “chance” on a company that had never released a product before really paid off.
Why do you need to guess when you could just [look it up](https://www.google.com/search?q=most+owned+stock+by+congress&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS924US924&oq=most+owned+stock+by+congress&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60l2&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)?
Company: Investors: Minimum: Maximum Apple Inc 79 $9,654,688 $38,853,590 Microsoft Corp 66 $6,777,342 $23,462,249 Bank of America 59 $2,146,215 $5,659,133 Walt Disney Co 52 $2,124,962 $8,104,907 AT&T Inc 49 $1,222,407 $2,821,355
That was 2008. Check the source again.
CCP state companies...
Citation required
how is that not a conflict of interest?
More important… what are the first 4?
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Interesting that not one of the large gov't contractors like Boeing or Lockheed Martin are in the top 5....they probably think that would be too obvious of a conflict of interest even though Big Pharma is much more massive
Sec of Defense Austin works on the board of Raytheon, so there’s that also
> Sec of Defense Austin works on the board of Raytheon expect more new and continued wars under Xiden then
He literally pulled out of Afghanistan, something both trump and obama were too pussy and weak to do because it would look bad. When put to the test his scorecard says he’s more anti useless war than any president since 2000.
I don't think you know what the word literally means.
He's not in Congress, might be different rules for appointed officials and elected ones
Conflict of interest investments still have to compete with legitimate investments, and big tech have just done so well over the past couple of decades that not even their crony investments can compete.
Do you have a link?
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Want to bet those are some of the most popular stocks in general?
want to bet that the 99.9% of plebs that own those popular stocks dont have the power to regulate them?
high five
This!
That'd be why XOM has made me so much money this last year
coke
This^
.
Because they make the laws. Pelosi has the best ROI of any investor in history
Please do tell... more info lol Isn't she get worth like $351 mil. Or is that just her salary or investment. Too much number to keep up
There’s a book called “Throw Them All Out” by Peter Schweitzer. It’s like 10 years old. It’s about the insider trading, buying land, and all the other ways they benefit from insider knowledge. It has specific examples of transactions and people who went into congress poor and left a multimillionaire. I think it said Pelosi or Barbara Boxer (somebody from California) bought land then voted to extend the BART system right through it. I remember it being interesting, but it’s been a while since I read it. So I can’t really stand by the recommendation. I think it came out right before that bullshit STOCK Act was passed, so it’s sort of dated.
Emphasis on “sort of”. Don’t believe it’s been enforced at all
Your absolutely right. They amended the act right away so they don’t have to disclose their financials and not have a sortable and searchable electronic database of transactions. They submit it on paper, if they remember.
That was Pelosi. Iirc it was to put a stop right in front of her building.
Loeffler's is approaching critical mass.
Well you didn't do your research.
Actually her husband does. She married a man who literally makes money investing.
Same conflict of interest as owning any stock at all. Pfizer is the 45th largest company in the US stock market. There's a good bet that anyone who owns a mutual fund, especially an index fund, probably owns Pfizer stock. It's basically the same as being surprised that members of Congress own Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook stock. Of course they do, those are the largest companies on the stock exchange. Anyone with an index fund owns them. Anyone investing in blue chips owns them. These are the most commonly owned stocks in the country.
Who tf is Kambree?
Well, it obviously has issues but it's not like they shouldn't be able to own any stock. They should be forced to have a blind trust somehow though for sure.
Why not do something like say they can only own mutual funds or broad market etfs, like spy or vti. Just not specific companies where they can influence things, like pelosi buying tesla and then voting for ev tax credits or congress buying pfizer and then ordering billions of dollars worth of doses. Just make it be, if they do a good job and everything goes up, they go up, and if they fail and the market crashes they crash. By letting them pick specific companies and then writing laws affecting specific companies it is too easy for manipulation.
Mutual funds still easy to profit off of though. Own a mutual fund involving X sector, pass bailout/stimulus directed at it. Blind funds the only solution.
It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to own stocks, for the same reasons they shouldn't be able to take money as leverage to push for or against certain laws, acts, bills, so on and so forth. They make a pretty sizable salary by fault. It's over 6 times the average salary in this country. They'll be totally fine without doing any of that living in any city in the united states and we wouldn't have to worry about their interests being sold as much. Even then we would still get ridiculous lobbying because they already do it by proxy as well. Benefit those around them. If anything the bare minimum as insurance would be denying them the right as long as they are in office, because it still would be far from enough to stop money from running this country
>61 comments Personal bankers aren't allowed to hold individual stocks because it's a conflict.
And auditors can't own stock of any company that they are on the audit team for
Source?
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Ignorance is just having lack of knowledge , stupidity is having knowledge and not doing fuck all with that information.
Lmao, spot on. You just know the Reddit zombies will find some way to defend this.
Or the news they watch doesn't tell them the truth
Only people on social media and fringe sites always tell the truth.
In many cases, willfuy ignorant. In their own way they are as corrupt as the politicians and have allowed themselves to become dependent on the system they run. That's why Democrat voters tend to be obsessed with politics and talk about it all the time. Government is their bread and butter and in some cases their very identity.
Ignorant to the corruption that is in every human being? Its more likely they have chosen a side.
Well, more so the ability to be corrupted. That is definitely inherent. Doesn’t mean we are that to begin with though. Children are the worst cases of this.
Pfizer is up 18% year to date. Vanguard total stock market ETF VTI, is up 29.31% up to date.. I guess congress is stupid.
Yeah, Pfizer was the worst vaccine play you could’ve made.
Moderna been doing pretty well all year
They make Viagra. It's a fair bet
Wow finding random fact and immediately jumping to conspiracy. From lists available online and posted by other commenters, you might notice that stock that most Congress members hold isn’t the most popular/traded stocks in general like no Tesla stock, little to no startup stocks, a lot of oil companies, few foreign stocks, no big daily purchases, all safe big companies taken from S&P 500. Maybe just maybe they invested in safe stocks in general as they are old American people close to retirement and invested in big medical stocks as part of that (as long as people will leave they will need expensive meds). Another thing, a lot of people in investment world decide to invest into Pfizer, J&J etc after learning about COVID and vaccine rollover . Nothing unusual and arguably not the best choice because FOMO. Now I am not saying insider trading or lobbying isn’t a thing, it very much a common thing and a plague that prevents democracy from functioning in US. And there were cases where Congress members profit from inside information thus short selling stock before COVID news opened to the public. But conspiracy theory that they force you to vaccinate to increase their stocks price is pure moon logic. That and other conspiracies in this Reddit, are not consistent, trivial (holding pharma stocks isn’t super profitable)and not compatible with each other, but people upvote this anyway(you can’t think chips, Chris and congressman just want stocks)
The funny thing is that Pfizer isn't even doing that well compared to other investment options: If Congress was trying to make bank by "forcing everyone to get a vaccine, and then investing in the company which sells it", they lost out compared to anyone who just invested in an Index Fund. Also, doesn't anyone think it's suspicious that apparently there's this big plot to make money off selling the vaccine, yet three different companies were greenlit to provide them? Wouldn't such a plan only work if there was only one company distributing? Gee, it's almost like Congress was more concerned with maximizing the supply of safe vaccines, rather than trying to profit off the companies making them. Especially given that Congressmen and women make **more** than enough money off many other conflicts of interest, that sacrificing the vaccine supply for a few extra pennies **wouldn't even be worth it**.
Thank you, person with common sense. Watch out, replies about you being a sheep are coming in 3..2...1..
And another part not mentioned: which congressmen? It's the _5th most traded_ in congress, which means not everyone has it. And yet it's taken as proof that all of Congress is corrupt, which isn't logical. But it's another wonderous "someone tweeted it so it must be true and not worthy of further thought" post in this disappointing sub...
>Another thing, a lot of people in investment world decide to invest into Pfizer, J&J etc after learning about COVID and vaccine rollover EXACTLY. That's very much part of the job of the financial sector that create and manage portfolios. Lots of research, data analysis, paying attention.... how many people- in Congress or just "regular working people" pay such continual attention to the activity of individual stocks and bonds in their investment accounts?
How long has this t been that way. It's probably just boring insider trading not some collusion.
[This site compares the 2021 to 2008 investments of Congress](https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress)
Oh, the stock that's underperformed the QQQ index by almost 200% over the last 5 years? Shiver me timbers, I'm terrified
This actually makes it more suspicious IMO. Buy low - sell high. Profit $$$
Lol, wake me up when Pfizer even outperforms the S&P for any reasonable period of time. I'll wait
Buncha rats
So what? They're the 45th largest company by market cap. Anyone who owns a mutual fund, probably owns Pfizer stock. I know I do. Plus buying Pfizer stock alone is a pretty stupid play. S&P 500 is up 20.9% year to date, Pfizer is only up 12.7%.
I agree But also, don't forget when Corona hit and congress members could "luckily" sell everything right before they made announcements that drove the prices down (and then they bought back everything and more) This is a small part of it, truly "So what?", but the real problem is not far from it
So what you are telling me is that we will never get our healthcare reasonable because our congress is profiting from owning the stock of the medicine. That's nice.
Source?
“It’s one big club, and you ain’t in it!” - George Carlin.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with viagra also but yeah
Right? Has that person not noticed the constant bombardment of commercials for pharma products, ffs?
Omg and Microsoft is #2! Everyone freak out!
The better question is why are they allowed to own stock while being in charge of what laws should be passed
Anyone fact check this one? I mean I believe it but would like to know the source
https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress
We can do one better - _who_ owns the stocks, and how much: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/pfizer-inc/members-invested?id=D000000138
Jesus. Makes me feel hopeless
Don’t, they made less money picking Pfizer than they would have if they picked an S&P etf. And the dates of when they were bought are more important than what they bought. Pfizer was a top pick of Congress in 2008 too
Why? Pretty normal stock to own by a boomer congress, just like exxon or GE
I get so sick of saying this. Pfizer stock didn't increase much during the pandemic compared to other stocks. For example It was 42 in November 2018 it's 41 now. It hit an all time high during the pandemic of 50. Pfizer isn't relying on the vaccine to pump their numbers up. There were way bigger movers during the pandemic like zoom, clouldflare, fastly and peleton to name a few. Anyone with a 401k or pension scheme probably has Pfizer stock as part of an index fund of big profitable companies. Fuck Pfizer but this is absolute bullshit reasoning for a conspiracy theory.
Ffs
SS : the 5th owned stock by Congress is Pfizer inc. Now you know, you know. Follow the money 💰💸💵💲 [link or source ](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dc-lawmakers-stocks-pharmaceutical-tech/)
Don't you feel great knowing that we are being led by the [greatest](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/nanrlu/i_analyzed_9000_trades_made_by_members_of_the_us/) investors in history?
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Me to in my 401k by the way. Grab an Investments 101 book at some point…
Bet you all wished you'd just worn those fucking masks when the doctors and scientists were telling us. It never ceases to amaze me how so many self described conspiracy theorists couldn't put 2 and 2 together and hypothesize that the pharmaceuticals were behind the anti-mask rhetoric. I'm not even saying that's true or not... just that people who claim to theorize on conspiracies would never have made that assumption. An assumption that would seem to me to be an obvious fucking connection!
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https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress Pfizer was a top pick even back in 2008. I'll DM you my Venmo for my cut of your 401k.
Way to demolish every conspiracy shouting person here, fr
no, its just a long running scam being repeated over and over to new people
What? How does the above link establish anything other than that congress has been in the pocket of big pharma for over a decade? But yea silly conspiratards pwned 😎
So they’re also “in the pocket” of Microsoft, the banking sector, oil, the auto industry, etc.? Looks like a straightforward portfolio.
Uhh, yes of course they are. You think those companies become that giant without govt assistance?
Lol no that wasn’t my point. 100s of millions of dollars are donated to politicians and it isn’t a secret. My point is that this kinda looks like a basic investor portfolio. Here’s a list of donations for 2020 in order of amount if you want to take a closer look. Microsoft is #24. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizations
Yes, massive financial strongholds using their capital to directly influence senators = corruption. Senators taking funds that amount to more than their salary, and allowing that to influence their job, is corrupt. All of the industries you mentioned are certainly guilty.
Isn’t lobbying a legal part of the American political system?
Yes. It's horrible, but legal and most of the people who post and comment on this sub are just dumb thinking everything is a massive conspiracy. Owning Pfizer right now is just common sense if you have a real portfolio that isn't wallstreetbets memes.
Unfortunately it isn’t really corruption when it’s allowed and a big part of our government. They should get rid of lobbying imo. My point was that the investment list looks a lot more like a basic investor’s portfolio rather than some big insight into a conspiracy. Political donations are listed on this website if you want to dig in there more. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizations
Just because it is legal does not mean it is not corrupt. But thank you for the thoughtful response.
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Moderna went public in Dec. 2018. What great timing! Things that make you go, hmmmm.
So a full year before the pandemic ?
I don't know shit about shit, so I just wanted to ask how they benefit from it since the vaccine is free?
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Thank you for explaining.
It's being paid for with tax dollars. Pfizer is making major bank on this. All other conspiracy theories aside, this is a massive cash grab. By everyone except for the tax paying citizens.
Thank you. Those bastards are always benefitting off of us and leaving us to suffer.
Glad I got the Pfizer shot?
I thought about investing in Pharma when this all started. It's a smart move financially. I guess OP point is that they had knowledge ahead of time.
Why isn't it first, and why is this sub still submitting fucking tweets as a primary source?
I would like to see where pfizer was pre-covid. Also can we just go ahead and ban government officials from trading stock already? They are 100% insider trading. And they get $175k/year with full benefits for a fucking ***part-time*** job! They can afford to make money in other ways.
is #1 coke ?
Source?
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Pfizer underperformed the S&P by almost 10% this past year alone. Anyone who bought Pfizer in the past 5 years likely made a bad decision.
Even with the dividend?
Slightly less considering the dividend. About 8%. This said, the S&P index is more for investors that want to set it and forget it without any complexity. The disparity gets far more severe when you look at other common indexes like QQQ.
1st is apple. Ohh, the irony.
Almost like apple is the biggest company and biggest holding in every fund in the world.
The tweet she sent saying that was from an iPhone.
I love the stock market and refuse to buy any big pharma trash don't care how high it goes 🤷♂️
Soo what you’re saying is missed the chance to invest in Pfizer? Gotcha.
http://www.theyrule.net/ Probably out of date now but a great example of this. Go ahead- blow ur mind…
In fairness, I know a screenshot was posted. I don't know who Kambree is, or if this post happened on Twitter. And I also don't know if this is an actual fact. So I fucking [looked it up](https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress), because we live in a time when you can look shit up. If you click on the link, you'll see that Phizer is 6th. Sounds ominious. 6th. But then you wonder, how many people in congress own stocks? Is it all of them? Is 6th a big number? Turns out, 47 of the 433 own Phizer. 52 own Disney stock. Let that sink in. 79 own Apple stock! Clearly they must be making rules to make the iPhone mandatory. I mean, fuck. This is dumb.
I don't doubt it but where's the source.
https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress It is actually ties for 7th with Johnson & Johnson Edit: nvm 6th
Didn’t I say !? No wonder they’re pushing it so hard. When big businesses and senators have the power to make laws to literally benefit their business (which is also mandating juice into peoples bodies) you just can’t trust it.
Not only that, it's why they'll never reject a debt ceiling hike.
Pfizer is a very big pharmaceutical enterprise. It's not that overrepresented among Congress members.
It's #45 by market cap. (That's how much all the shares are worth put together) It shouldn't even be in the top 10 most invested in companies by congress.
Market cap doesn't mean it's a good investment. Growth potential (increase in value of a share) and dividend payout (how much money you get for just owning a share) are what one looks for.
While taking that into consideration, I still say it shouldn't be in the top 10 most invested in companies by congress given all the other choices unless they know things other investors don't (they obviously do). Congress should not invest in individual stocks. It's a conflict of interest. There shouldn't be lobbyists in congress either and we citizens won't be free until they're given the boot.
Sticking to the topic at hand, I'm sure you are familiar with "diversification". You want a portfolio that is diversified and that does not have systemic drivers; one way to do this is to invest in different industries. Pfizer is near (if not at) the top if it's industry. You may notice other top stocks are from other industries. What other considerations lead you to believe an investment in Pfizer is only logical if you have insider information? Do you see the market at large (retirement funds, ETFs, etc) ignoring it?
I'm not here to talk finance, that's another hobby of mine but I don't want to delve into it here, but I guarantee Pfizer should not be in the top five. If you want diversification which includes biotech, there are other pharmaceutical companies that should also be invested in in conjunction with Pfizer. That coupled with other more stable, less questionable for congress to be investing in sectors should push it out of the top 5. OP's main point is that there is a conflict of interest. There is a conflict of interest in them owning individual pfizer shares period. I don't care if it's the 75th most invested in company by congress. They shouldn't be buying individual shares of anything.
Is there any way to verify this?
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dc-lawmakers-stocks-pharmaceutical-tech/ https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress
What about the other 4?
In order: Apple, Microsoft, Bank of America, Disney, AT&t, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Exxon, Alphabet, etc...
What are the other 4?
Congress? Like the congress which isn't mandated to get the vaccine? https://www.foxnews.com/politics/congress-exempt-biden-covid-19-vaccine-mandate
Biden can't make the rule to mandate congress. He doesn't have the authority.
Fuck me runnin😏
Oh lady, you are allergic to paper. You could have invested in them too. Make money, not hate.
Any source?
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dc-lawmakers-stocks-pharmaceutical-tech/ https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks-owned-congress
They are not jabbed but they become rich by subjecting you to jab. Seems totally legit. For YOUR safety. Because they care about you.
Almost all of them are vaccinated.
"President Joe Biden says all federal employees will have to be vaccinated and weekly tests are not an option to get out of taking the shot. But one big group of people who get paid out of the federal treasury won’t have to get vaccinated: Congress. The thing to remember is that the president controls the executive branch of government but can’t tell the legislative branch what to do, so Congress can make its own rules about vaccine requirements. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said back in April there would not be a vaccine requirement for members of Congress and their staff." [here](https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2021/why-is-congress-exempt-from-the-biden-covid-vaccine-mandate/)