Skip navigation

Government officials allowed to invest?

or Register to post new content in the forum

 

Comments

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <blockquote> <br> <p>

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Sep 2, 2007 11:22 pm

Can someone give a list or general rule of thumb for which government

officials (elected or otherwise) are NOT allowed to invest in securities?

Sep 3, 2007 12:10 am

They're all allowed to invest but must disclose it. I believe the disclosure for elected officials is once per year.

Believe it or not, SEC types may invest, too. The rules are no short selling and no options trading. Also, I believe they must hold their positions (long ones) 90 days or more. Yes, they must disclose their holdings.

Sep 3, 2007 10:12 am

[quote=ymh_ymh_ymh]


They're all allowed to invest but must disclose it. I believe the disclosure for elected officials is once per year.

Believe it or not, SEC types may invest, too. The rules are no short selling and no options trading. Also, I believe they must hold their positions (long ones) 90 days or more. Yes, they must disclose their holdings

[/quote]

Don't alot of elected officials set up blind trusts to avoid many of the issues?

If I was an elected official and had to disclose holdings, I'd stick to plain broad market index funds, so I could avoid an questions about my investment holdings.
Sep 3, 2007 12:02 pm
The smart ones (who wish to stay in office and avoid probes or allegations of special deals to promote their own interests) do set up blind trusts.
Sep 3, 2007 7:17 pm

I believe Greenspan was only in short-term Treasuries, during his tenure, if I’m not mistaken.