Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has used the recent tariff-driven market swings to renew her push for a ban on congressional stock trading, highlighting the risk of insider trading when lawmakers or administration officials have access to sensitive, market-moving information.
What To Know: Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats are calling for transparency and legislative reform to address what they view as systemic ethical risks related to Congress members trading stocks based on non-public information.
The latest push comes after news of President Donald Trump‘s reciprocal tariff plans caused extreme volatility in the stock market and unusual options trading activity was witnessed.
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Several market trackers showed that call volumes for several stocks including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) spiked just minutes before Trump announced the 90-day pause on most of the steepest tariffs.
What Else: Ocasio-Cortez posted a video to her YouTube account on Saturday of a speech she gave in Idaho on April 14. The New York representative again called for a ban on members of Congress owning individual company stocks in the video.
"How have members of Congress convinced themselves that they can take an objective vote on health care, energy or war -- when their own money is tied up in pharmaceutical, oil and gas, or defense stocks? And just how much did Marjorie Taylor Greene make when she bought the dip?" Ocasio-Cortez wrote in the caption.
The "dip" Ocasio-Cortez is referring to is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) purchasing shares of several stocks just before the 90-day tariff pause was announced.
Greene bought shares of technology stocks like Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) that were hurt by potential tariffs. Greene also disclosed buying Nike, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) and Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) shares.
Greene’s initial investment of $21,000 grew to $315,000 after Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs. The trades drew attention from many accounts that follow Congress trading activity, as well as Ocasio-Cortez and other politicians.
In the YouTube video Ocasio-Cortez posted this weekend, she called for a ban on stock trading by members of Congress.
"To be clear, I don’t care what party you are: Democrat or Republican. It doesn’t matter how powerful one is or the position that one holds, members of Congress holding and trading individual stock is wrong. It is corrosive. It is destructive. And it needs to be banned," she said.
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