I'm all for the pitch forking when it makes sense, but the congressman has a decent out which wouldn't be hard to prove.<p>> In the audio recording, Fallon backed this up by outlining the trade as an option call in which he purchased a block of $250,000 in Microsoft shares on May 26, and subsequently sold the rights to other investors to purchase at a later date. Those other investors chose to purchase the shares on June 21, according to disclosure reports, effectively liquidating Fallon's position in the company just two weeks before the high-profile JEDI contract fell through.<p>He purchased a bunch of stock, or ITM (in the money) options - either way he then sold covered call options (good safe bet). Those sold call options went ITM and someone exercised forcing his position to be liquidated.<p>Purchase a stock, sell call options to make a bit more money or as a "hedge" against the stock going down.<p>Either way, classic strategy.<p>It didn't really work this time because the stock went up too far, out of his expectation which limits the gains to the value of the options sold. But again, it's a relatively safe strategy.
The article glosses over huge details. It sounds like he bought options back in May and some time between May 26 and June 21, he used the position to sell an options contract which the buyer exercised on June 21. I'm not highly educated on the market, but it doesn't seem that unusual to me.
Gotta love how open with their biases the article is. They make sure to spell out Republicans multiple times throughout the article, but put "D-N.J." for the Democrat from New Jersey.
It sounds like he bought MSFT stock and then sold a call option on it. Selling call options is a profit and risk reducing betting strategy where you sell rights (but not an obligation) to the buyer to call away shares at a fixed “strike” price between now and an agreed-upon expiration date in exchange for a modest fixed premium. The stock price went over the strike price before the expiration date and were called away from him. Looking at Microsoft’s price chart, over the last 5 YEARS, you would have never lost money over any 4 month period (fiscal quarter) by just simply holding MSFT shares —- and that’s before adding in the increasing quarterly dividends!<p>Here’s an reasonable analogy for article writers that understand baseball more than options and stocks:<p>1) Selling call options like this Rep did is like bunting the baseball. This is where you hold the bat sideways and let the baseball tap on the bat. No chance of missing the ball but you can only get 1 base.<p>2) Buying and holding stock is like hitting the baseball your normal way. It’s the most common strategy. Maybe you’ll hit a home run, maybe you’ll get a few bases, maybe you’ll strike out.<p>3) Buying call options is like swinging for a homerun each time. You often run the risk of someone catching the ball or you miss hitting the ball but when it works, you hit it big.<p>In terms of baseball, swinging normally/commonly is the best strategy… do you agree? Next is aiming only for home runs. Last is bunting the ball or copying what this rep does.
Congress and Senate from both parties are equally corrupt when it comes to insider trading but this article makes zero mentions of Democrats. The bias in these articles is incredible. It states:<p>> Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, all Republicans, drew scrutiny for their own pandemic trading last year as well.<p>But it amazingly excludes Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who did the exact same thing with covid trading. Nor does it mention Nancy Pelosi, worth $250 million, who claims she has no idea of her husband's co-incidental perfect stock trades. The article mentions Tom Malinowski but only puts "D-N.J." next to his name but puts the full "Republican" and "GOP" next to other names.<p>Data:<p>Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress:<p><a href="https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate/congress" rel="nofollow">https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate/congress</a><p>Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Senate:<p><a href="https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate" rel="nofollow">https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate</a><p>> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return.<p>> Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks of $250,000 - $5,000,000, which is incredible size given the amount of $MSFT shares he owns. For ex, on 02-12 he sold 500k $MSFT $160 strike expiring 06/18/2021. On that same day, he bought deep ITM calls of $1M-5M at $145 expiring 03/19/2021. The whale caught both of his movements as well.<p>In congress, Democrats are worse. In the senate, Republicans are worse. Pretending that only one side does it shows the author doesn't care about the actual problem of corruption but cares about scoring political points.