Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy were at the U.S. Capitol in January.
The images are Win McNamee.
According to the New York Times' DealBook, US lawmakers and their immediate family members traded more than $630 million worth of stocks and other financial assets in the year of 2021.
DealBook found that congressional trades in stock options doubled in value, and that purchases of cryptocurrencies soared. The politicians and their families bought and sold assets with the information compiled by Capitol Trades for DealBook. The figures were lower in 2020.
Roughly 60 percent of the trades were in company stocks, with the rest split between funds, bonds and other assets. Democrats bought $75 million worth of stocks and Republicans bought $100 million of them.
Nancy Pelosi rejected the idea of barring members of Congress and their spouses from trading stocks.
We are a free-market economy. Pelosi said that they should be able to participate in that.
DealBook found that legislators and their families spent more on tHe digital currency than they did a year ago. The report said that Republicans accounted for most of the trades. More institutions and individual investors piled into the market as the value of the cryptocurrencies surpassed $3 trillion for the first time. The market's valuation has risen to $2.3 trillion, as prices have cooled.
Microsoft was the most popular trade for Democrats, accounting for nearly half of all purchases, and accounting for about $35 million. Republicans were involved in energy shares. They bought $32 million worth of stock in companies in that sector, which was a third of all purchases.
The value of congressional trades in stock options doubled in value due to a surge in options trading by retail investors that has spurred scrutiny among regulators and lawmakers.
The publication's five-month-long investigation found that 49 members of Congress and 182 senior congressional staffers had violated the STOCK Act, a law to prevent insider trading.
Pelosi said it's important that members comply with the law, but she hadn't seen the project yet.
Business Insider has an original article.
