When a senator who sits on the Health Committee makes a big bet on a small, home-state medical devices company that just happens to get mucho moolah from the federal government, and then that stock goes up more than 40% in the weeks after said senator’s big bet, it’s the opinion of this mostly humble columnist that there’s some real shady stuff going on.
It gets worse
Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat senator, purchased shares in Tactile Systems Technology for up to $250,000. TCMD’s shares have been on a losing streak since 2023. They are down 60% from their 52-week high price of $26.11. In the 48-hour period before Smith’s big purchase, the price had dropped by nearly a third to $10.27, from $12.61.
Obviously, buy the dip. It’s amazing how quickly TCMD recovered in the following three weeks. The company is up 43% from the time the Minnesota Senator spent her money on a Minnesota firm that works in an industry under Smith’s committee.
This is just one trade made by a senator.
The financial analyst Quiver Quantitative said it was “the most suspect congressional stock transaction I’ve ever seen.”
Quiver created “a bot to buy stocks being purchased by politicians” in May last year. Quiver’s congressional robot fund has grown by 20% in 18 months, even with a flat stock market.
The sliminess is not partisan. This is an example of the performance of Quiver’s robot by tracking the Tesla trades made by one Democrat, and two Republicans.
How’s your portfolio doing?
QQ warns investors that despite the success of the Congress Buys Strategy it could still be hindered by weak disclosure rules. Under the 2012 STOCK Act, signed by President Barack Obama in December, Congresscritters have 45 days to report their stock transactions. However, the penalty for late disclosures amounts to $200.
You could, therefore, build a portfolio on the basis of what Sen. Smith does, but still, you wouldn’t be able to do as well because you would be 45 days behind. Or even longer if the person decides to pay $200 for late disclosures.
It gets worse.
Quiver says it has found 7,912 STOCK Act infractions, but only “a few” have been investigated. It would be a surprise to me if any of these investigations actually went anywhere. What would you expect, then? Congress is the one who writes the laws that govern Congress.
The silence of the mainstream media on this issue is, in my opinion, the most scandalous aspect of all of it.
Bill Whittle told Right Angle viewers in years past that the press was supposed to be like the antibodies of a healthy society, gathering at the scene of corruption to expose and destroy it. When a member of the Senate Health Committee whose husband is a medical stock investor makes a killing, there are zero stories about it in the mainstream media.
Quiver’s revelations have been viewed more than 2 million times on Twitter/X, the social media platform preferred by American journalists.
We know what Congress gets out of all this, so what’s the media’s payout?
