By |Published On: November 13th, 2011|Categories: Research Insights, Corporate Governance|

60 Minutes has a great segment explaining the lack of insider trading rules for Congressmen.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388130n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

Amazing, isn’t it? You can sit on the healthcare committee, learn that the new bill will cut insurance companies profits by 99%, and short insurance companies to your heart’s content.

WTF?

Recent academic research suggests hedge funds are cashing in on this insider trading loop hole as well:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1707181

In this paper, we examine the hypothesis that hedge fund managers obtain an informational advantage in securities trading through their connections with lobbyists. Using datasets on hedge fund long-equity holdings and lobbying expenses from 1999 to 2008, we show that hedge funds that are connected to lobbyists tend to trade more heavily in politically sensitive stocks than do non-connected funds. Furthermore, using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that connected hedge funds, relative to non-connected ones, outperform by 1.6 to 2.5 percent per month on their holdings of politically sensitive stocks, relative to their non-political holdings. These results suggest that hedge fund managers exploit private information, which can be an important source of their superior performance. Our study provides evidence for the ongoing debate about regulatory reform governing informed trading based on private political information.

I went ahead and polled a few of the neighborhood kids to see what they thought about their Congressmen/women trading on insider information. So not only are they screwing up our kids’ future, but now they are also extracting wealth via information advantages.

Pictures are worth a thousand words:

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About the Author: Wesley Gray, PhD

Wesley Gray, PhD
After serving as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps, Dr. Gray earned an MBA and a PhD in finance from the University of Chicago where he studied under Nobel Prize Winner Eugene Fama. Next, Wes took an academic job in his wife’s hometown of Philadelphia and worked as a finance professor at Drexel University. Dr. Gray’s interest in bridging the research gap between academia and industry led him to found Alpha Architect, an asset management firm dedicated to an impact mission of empowering investors through education. He is a contributor to multiple industry publications and regularly speaks to professional investor groups across the country. Wes has published multiple academic papers and four books, including Embedded (Naval Institute Press, 2009), Quantitative Value (Wiley, 2012), DIY Financial Advisor (Wiley, 2015), and Quantitative Momentum (Wiley, 2016). Dr. Gray currently resides in Palmas Del Mar Puerto Rico with his wife and three children. He recently finished the Leadville 100 ultramarathon race and promises to make better life decisions in the future.

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