Tag: stock market

Vaccine Stocks Drop After FDA Memo Links COVID Shots To Child Deaths

Vaccine stocks slumped Monday after an explosive memo from FDA vaccine chief Vinay Prasad surfaced late Friday, signaling the agency is preparing to roll out tough restrictions on new vaccines for children. Prasad described a “profound revelation” linking Covid shots to at least ten deaths in children. 

By late morning, Vaccine makers dropped on the memo: Moderna -6%, BioNTech -4.3%, Novavax -4%, Vaxcyte -6.6%.

Wall Street analysts weighed in on the memo, and all agreed it introduces a new regulatory overhang for vaccine stocks.

Here’s what the research desks told clients:

William Blair, Myles R. Minter (rates the MRNA market perform)

  • “Our interpretation of the memo is that CBER will focus its efforts on the younger 12- to 24-year-old male population for newly approved Covid-19 vaccines where the myocarditis risk is highest”
  • If new regulatory restrictions were to be implemented in the higher myocarditis risk population, analysts see further headwinds toward Moderna’s declining Covid-19 franchise “alongside further negative sentiment that this memo and subsequent actions may generate”
  • Analyst says Pfizer, BioNTech, Novavax and Sanofi could also be impacted
  • “The memo also indicates several upcoming reforms to the CBER vaccine regulatory pathway, most notably the “demand” for pre- market randomized trials assessing clinical endpoints, not just immunogenicity, for most new vaccine products”

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Nancy Pelosi’s Stock Market Return Rate During Her Time in Congress is INSANE

Nancy Pelosi is finally retiring from congress and she is doing so as an extremely wealthy woman.

During her 40 years in congress, her stock market return rate was 16,930 percent. Read that again. 16,930%

That is beyond stunning. People can spend their entire career working on Wall Street and not get that kind of return. It’s just the sort of thing that has spurred rumors of insider trading, and/or taking advantage of information gleaned by working in congress.

Pelosi is now worth over $280 million dollars. Not a bad haul for a public servant.

FOX News reports:

Pelosi earned more than $130 million in stock profits, return of 16,930%, during time in Congress: report

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and husband Paul Pelosi have raked in more than $130 million in stock profits over the course of her congressional career, a report said.

That’s a return of 16,930% over nearly four decades representing California, according to the New York Post.

The figure comes as Pelosi, 85, announced this week she will not be seeking re-election after completing her current term in 2027…

Before entering office in 1987, Pelosi and her husband reported between $610,000 and $785,000 in stocks in their portfolio, the Post said, citing a financial disclosure form.

Those stocks reportedly included Citibank and companies that are no longer publicly traded.

Over time, that portfolio has soared in value to $133.7 million today, the Post reported, citing estimates from Quiver Quantitative.

The newspaper said the profit of 16,930% exceeds the 2,300% that the Dow Jones had during the same time period.

Pelosi’s talents for investing are really unmatched, aren’t they?

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Report: Far-left Dem Crockett Didn’t Report Stocks As Required

U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett, the far-left, foul-mouthed Democrat from Texas, might have violated House rules by not disclosing her stock portfolio.

The Washington Free Beacon disclosed the possible violation today. Crockett “owned stocks in at least 25 companies that she did not disclose to the public during her first congressional run in 2022, even though she’d quietly admitted to the holdings the previous year as a Texas state legislator,” the website reported. Nor did she disclose the holdings when she landed in Congress in 2023.

The records reveal Crockett to be something of a hypocrite. She doesn’t believe the sinistral nonsense she spews like a firehose.

The Stocks

Indeed, Crockett is quite the Wall Street tycoon, the report shows.

“The records obtained by the Free Beacon open a window into the personal financial life of Crockett, 44, who says she supports herself,” the website reported:

“I have no husband, y’all. Never been married, never been engaged” she told an interviewer in February, holding up her hands to emphasize the absence of a ring.

She holds stocks in companies that can gain from her position in Congress, and “and others that stand in opposition to the image she’s cultivated as a champion of green energy.”

Crockett’s holdings during 2021 were “sizable,” the website reported. She owned shares in Big Tech, Energy, and Pharma, along with shares in the auto and marijuana sectors. She “did not disclose owning any of those same stocks in her first congressional financial disclosure, which also covered her financial holdings during the 2021 calendar year.”

Crockett’s array of blue-chip and other stocks is impressive. They include “Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, General Motors, Uber, DuPont, ExxonMobil, American Airlines, AT&T, Aurora Cannabis, Ford, and ‘Corporate Cannabis’ and ‘Stocks Worldwide.’”

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Why Politicians Always Get Richer in Office (and You Don’t)

Think about your last job. Ever gotten a secret tip about the company’s next big merger right before the public announcement? Yeah, didn’t think so. For the rest of us, acting on that would land us in hot water – maybe even jail time. But inside the marble corridors and hushed committee rooms? Different story altogether.

They call it “congressional stock trading,” which sounds very official and boring. What it really means is politicians legally using information they learn because of their jobs – stuff you and I aren’t privy to – to buy or sell stocks. Government earmarks billions for a new defense project boosting a specific drone manufacturer? Funny how certain portfolios suddenly get heavier. Massive legislation passes changing healthcare subsidies? Watch how health insurance stocks move right after the vote.

It’s not telepathy. It’s not “expert analysis.” It’s being on the inside track while everyone watches the race from the nosebleeds. They write their own rules about disclosures, enforce them weakly against themselves, and pat themselves on the back for “transparency” that resembles fogged-up glass.

The Golden Parachute Club

You leave your job, you get maybe a handshake or a parting gift. Their journey is different. The moment someone announces they aren’t running again or loses an election, something fascinating happens: headhunters scramble. Suddenly, that junior Senator with average name recognition lands a seven-figure advisory role at a defense contractor. That obscure committee chair suddenly becomes a “consultant” for the very industry they supposedly regulated.

This is the “revolving door.” It spins both ways. Industry insiders walk into key government jobs to “oversee” their former colleagues. Then, politicians glide effortlessly back out into lucrative “consulting” gigs, “think tank” positions, or board seats for companies that directly benefited from legislation they championed. The currency here isn’t expertise you can find on LinkedIn; it’s relationships, favors owed, and the warm, cozy feeling they generate in corporate boardrooms. They call it “private sector experience.” We see pawns completing their mission and collecting their rewards.

Political Chameleons and Real Estate Magic

Ever tried buying property in a booming market? It’s expensive, cutthroat. Now imagine getting insider knowledge about a planned government development – a new highway extension, a federal complex, a mass transit hub destined for a forgotten corner of your district. Information like that is pure gold dust.

It’s not uncommon to see lawmakers snapping up parcels of land or properties just before major, undisclosed public projects become known. The value explodes. Sudden windfalls from “smart investments.” They disclose the gain eventually, but the how and the why? Buried under layers of complex paperwork and shrugs. Did they foresee the future? Or did they peek behind the curtain? The coincidence meter pings off the charts more often than it has any right to.

It goes beyond dirt. Think zoning changes voted on by local officials who own large chunks of real estate nearby. Think obscure amendments slipped into massive bills that funnel taxpayer dollars towards building projects conveniently adjacent to land held by those well-connected individuals. Follow the geography. The map tells its own story.

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Bitcoin crash proves crypto is a rigged casino

Something strange happened in crypto-land this weekend. On Friday afternoon at around 4:30 pm, a large “whale” — a player big enough to noticeably move asset prices — began placing shorts on crypto. Short orders occur when traders borrow an asset, which they immediately sell, before buying it back at (they hope) a reduced price, repaying the loan and then pocketing the difference.

Minutes later, President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese imports. The price of Bitcoin then plunged by 4%, whereupon most of the short positions were closed. Whoever was doing the trading walked away with a profit of $192 million. Nice work if you can get it.

Of course, everyone else in the crypto space lost around $200 billion among them. The immediate suspicion was that someone in the administration knew what was coming and decided to make a fast buck.

It’s not the first time strange movements have taken place in markets just before a major Trump announcement that moved asset prices. In April, the Attorney General Pam Bondi sold millions of dollars worth of stock in Trump Media just hours before the President’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement sent its price tumbling. A week later, Trump’s tweet urging that it was a “great time to buy,” just before his U-turn on tariffs, raised further suspicion. ProPublica has documented several similar cases where market swings coincided suspiciously with presidential statements.

Trump denies any insider dealing while acknowledging, albeit doubting, that administration insiders could be profiting from privileged information. And it would be very difficult to prove that anyone broke the law. In any case, there’s more to the story than an engineered crash: cryptocurrency prices were already sliding before Trump’s announcement, which merely accelerated the fall — if only briefly.

The crypto market is highly leveraged, with traders taking on debt to buy digital assets on the assumption that rising prices will make repayment easy. But when prices turn, some owners are forced to sell quickly to meet their debt obligations. That appears to have exacerbated Friday’s plunge.

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The country is healing: A company that provided car loans to illegals just went belly up…

A Dallas-based auto lender built on giving car loans to illegals has just gone belly up, and it’s dragging Wall Street down with it.

Tricolor Holdings was once hailed by the US Treasury as a “community development” success story. Now, they’ve just filed for bankruptcy as fraud allegations and a full-blown federal investigation overtake them. The company, which sold overpriced used cars to illegals and wrapped the scheme in a feel-good “social lending” label, is leaving major US banks like JPMorgan, Barclays, and Fifth Third staring at massive losses.

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Burchett chides colleagues over insider trading: ‘Crooked as a dog‘s leg’

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) has slammed his colleagues in Congress who engage in insider trading, saying they should be “on Wall Street” instead of on Capitol Hill.

“Americans understand what’s going on with Congress,” Burchett said Sunday on the “Cats Roundtable” radio show hosted by John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM. “When they see their members of Congress making three, four, 500 percent returns, dadgum it, they ought not be in Congress, they ought to be on Wall Street.”

Burchett called it wrong and said “everybody knows it, and I think it’s crooked as a dog’s leg, and we need to outlaw it.”

On Sept. 3, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill that would ban stock trading by members of Congress and their close family members.

The “Restore Trust in Congress Act” mixes together several past proposals intended to stop members of Congress from trading stocks.

Should the bill pass, lawmakers who violate the law would face financial penalties equal to 10 percent of the value of their investment and would be forced to relinquish any earnings from the violation.

“If you want a day trade, leave Congress,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, previously said. “It’s that simple.”

“We’re not going to judge what you did before now, but now that this bill is going to come to the floor — and we’re going to make sure of that — it’s your chance to get right with the American people because at the end of the day, Congress is not a casino,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) also said.

In August, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called for a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks. Bessent specifically named former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and said they have “eye-popping returns.”

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House Democrat Snagged a Bunch of Oracle Stock Just Before TikTok Deal Was Announced

President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order affirming technology giant Oracle would play a leading — and potentially lucrative — role in TikTok’s pending U.S. spinoff from Chinese company ByteDance.

Just days before that, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana was busy buying up shares of Oracle, according to a congressional financial disclosure reviewed by NOTUS.

Rep. Cleo Fields purchased between $80,000 and $200,000 worth of Oracle shares across three different trades — on Sept. 17, 18 and 23, the disclosure document indicates. (Lawmakers are only required to disclose the values of stock trades in broad ranges.) News of Oracle’s participation in the TikTok deal first broke on Sept. 22.

Fields is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, which has jurisdiction over laws and government programs affecting financial markets and the securities industry. He also serves on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act, prohibits members of Congress from using nonpublic information to inform personal financial decisions.

It is unclear what Fields knew about Oracle’s participation in the TikTok deal — if he knew anything — or whether Fields initiated the Oracle stock purchases himself or had a financial adviser make the purchases on his behalf.

Fields’ congressional office acknowledged NOTUS’ requests for comment but did not otherwise respond.

In July, after Fields went on a June stock-purchasing spree worth between $3.56 million and $11.07 million, Fields’ office told OpenSecrets that the congressman “has complied with all rules outlined by the House of Representatives.” Fields represents a congressional district that stretches from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.

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Nancy Pelosi Supports Ban on Congressional Insider Trading — ‘Hell Is Freezing Over’

We’re feeling the heat of summer in Washington, DC, but hell is freezing over anyway. 

Why? Because veteran stock market wizard Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has come out in support of a bill that will ban members of Congress from trading in stocks or options. 

For late arrivals, former House Speaker Pelosi has for more than a decade been the poster child for members of Congress who became rich by trading on inside information to predict the movement of the stock market. Pelosi has long tried to deflect criticism by saying that her husband makes all the stock moves, but the numbers don’t lie: While the S&P index is up by 240 percent over the last 10 years, Pelosi and her husband are up an eye-popping 745 percent.  

Peter Schweizer, who wrote about congressional stock speculating in the 2011 book Throw Them All Out, notes on the latest episode of The Drill Down podcast that when she first came to Congress, Nancy Pelosi was worth “a couple million.” Today, “she and her husband are worth about $260 million.” 

Schweizer and the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) documented her fortunate efforts in the stock market, which is detailed in a clip in today’s show. She managed to stop a bill from coming to the House floor that would have harmed Visa, Inc. She subsequently was part of that company’s initial public offering and, in two days, watched her shares go from $44 to $64 a share. 

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Insider Trading Runs Deep Within the Democrat Party

Democrats routinely claim to be defenders of ordinary Americans against Wall Street corruption. Yet, their financial disclosures reveal a pattern of insider trading that dwarfs what they accuse Republicans of doing. 

Insider trading exists on both sides of the aisle, but when Democrats are involved, the media looks the other way and pretends it doesn’t exist.

No example is more blatant than former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. According to financial disclosure reports, Pelosi and her husband, Paul, reported stock trades worth as much as $30 million in technology companies during her time in leadership. 

These trades weren’t random investments. In March 2021, Paul Pelosi exercised Microsoft options valued at up to $5 million, just weeks before the company secured a $22 billion U.S. Army contract for augmented reality headsets. 

In July 2021, he purchased shares of Alphabet worth between $1 million and $5 million while the House was debating legislation on Big Tech regulation. Later that year, he bought up to $3.3 million in Tesla stock as Democrats pushed for billions in electric vehicle subsidies. 

Pelosi repeatedly called criticism “nonsense,” but the profits are undeniable.

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