Securities and Exchange Commission employees should be barred from owning stock in individual companies, according to a pair of top House Republicans.
Citing a recent study that found SEC employees performed better than average when it came to picking stocks, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said the SEC should review its investment restrictions for its workforce. Even if agency employees are not gaining an unfair investing edge, the mere appearance of it could undermine confidence in the market overseers, they argued.
“The SEC’s policies that enable such trading create the perception that such inappropriate profiteering is taking place, which may harm investor confidence in financial markets,” they wrote to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White. “There appears to be no justification to continue to enable SEC employees to trade shares of stock on individual companies.”
The lawmakers asked White to immediately review the SEC’s employee investment policies and reconsider allowing employees to purchase most types of stocks.
In February, a group of researchers released a draft paper that found SEC employees generally posted stronger returns on their investments than average investors. In particular, the paper found that SEC employees were much more likely to sell a particular stock before the agency pursued an enforcement action.
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Why are members of Congress allowed to own stock in individual companies?
I bet Congress critters perform better than average when it comes to picking stocks too. Can anyone say ” insider trading”?
Is there no end to the corruption in gubmint?
Why is a foreign-born, anti-American, muzloid, socialist douchebag allowed to even run for president?
And speaking of Obama, you’ll notice how the demmorhoids keep telling everyone that the stock market is doing well so it must mean Obama is an economic genius and the turn around is going to happen next Tuesday.
Except that the stock market has NEVER been an indicator of how well the economy is doing. The stock market has always shown an upward trend in any 10 year period. If you put the crash of 1929 at the beginning, middle, or end of any 10 year period, the trend will still be up. Which means, the stock market is NOT an indicator of the health of the economy. It just means that those who buy and sell stock have learned to work within new rules and regulations and are very adept at making money.