Beneath the Surface
We Need to Talk About Washington’s Addiction…
February 25, 2025 • 5 minute, 58 second read
“Insider trading is an affront to the principle of fair and open markets, and those who engage in it must be held accountable.”
– Eric Holder, former Attorney General
February 25, 2025— While the media is busy focusing on… umn, their own response to Elon Musk’s emails challenging federal workers to justify their jobs, we’re taking a different tack.
We’re pulling back the curtain on one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets: insider trading.
Not the kind where a CEO gets hauled off in handcuffs.
No, this is the VIP package — where lawmakers just happen to be reviewing a bill that happens to send billions into a sector they happen to have been buying stock in. A coincidence so staggering, you’d have to be a fool — or a Federal Election Commissioner — to believe it’s not rigged.
And because Congress is in charge of regulating itself, this isn’t going anywhere. It’s like putting a fox in charge of the henhouse… and then letting the fox count the chickens.
Today, we turn the spotlight to Adam O’Dell.
Adam’s a “data whisperer.”
He spots patterns before the rest of us even know what we’re looking at.
His latest project has been working with Andrew Zatlin on a new trading strategy — one that follows the money right into the portfolios of our dear elected officials.
And what’s this?
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been making some eyebrow-raising moves in the market. Which means, for once, she and Nancy Pelosi agree on something:
Congress is the ultimate hedge fund. ~~ Enjoy, Addison
We Need to Talk About Washington’s Addiction…
Adam O’Dell, Green Zone Fortunes
Over the last week and a half, four different members of Congress have filed purchases for Palantir Technologies (PLTR) stock…
Most notable among these congressional investors is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“MTG,” as she’s called, is a well-known firebrand representing the 14th district of the state of Georgia. She is most notably a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, which means she may (or may not) be privy to insider information that could impact the future price of PLTR.
Of course, this kind of thing is nothing new for Washington. 60 Minutes actually featured a massive exposé on Washington’s insider trading all the way back in 2011!
Caught with their pants down, lawmakers were forced to take action, passing the “Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge” (STOCK Act). Despite the cute name, the law was toothless … and elected representatives mysteriously kept racking up massive financial gains.
This isn’t an issue of personal politics, either. Insider trading is epidemic on both sides of the aisle.
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is widely seen as the poster child for Washington’s insider trading habit, with a recorded 800% return since 2014 — and a jaw-dropping 54% portfolio gain in 2024.
Pelosi’s success has been so consistent, in fact, that many traders have decided “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and taken to simply copying her strategy on an investment-by-investment basis … yielding some pretty stunning results:
There’s even an exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to automatically copy her trades for you: the Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETF, with the clever ticker, NANC, gained 26% last year.
I don’t recommend investing in the ETF or following the former House speaker trade-for-trade. I bring Pelosi up because her case represents a hard fact about Washington that most of us would rather ignore:
Washington elites are already trading on privileged, insider information. And they will continue to do so whether we like it or not.
This has been a fact of life in D.C. for decades. But it will soon take on a whole new dynamic…
“Move Fast and Break Things”
President Trump’s second term is already shaping up to be unlike any we’ve ever seen before.
This time around, Trump has built an administration of businessmen and innovators who aren’t willing to accept the glacial pace of Washington bureaucracy.
Instead, these billionaires and business leaders are more likely to adhere to the Silicon Valley credo of “Move Fast and Break Things.”
That phrase was coined to explain the rapid innovation seen in the tech sector over the last two decades. Companies like Uber never asked permission to start a new taxi service. They just did it. Their widespread success forced everyone else to follow suit, even if it disrupted entire existing industries.
None of Trump’s people are strangers to the concept of creative destruction, and they know that the best way around an obstacle is often to plow straight through it.
Trump and his administration are here to effect real change, and that change is happening fast. He signed 26 different executive orders on his first day in office … that’s twice as many as every other president since Nixon combined:
These Executive Orders are especially impactful when you consider Trump’s control over every branch of government, which will last at least the next two years.
During that time, we’ll continue to see an elevation in both the SPEED and the SIZE of change in government.
Which — in turn — means the potential windfall of Congress’ insider trading will be bigger than ever.
After all, our elected representatives are already having closed-door meetings on everything from 25% tariffs to billion-dollar government contracts. And who’s the first person they call once the meeting lets out? You guessed it. Their broker.
I’m currently working with our resident Superforecaster, Andrew Zatlin, to finalize a new strategy for cashing in on the hottest insider trades. We’ll have more details on that strategy later this week, so stay tuned…
But What About Palantir?
Following news of MTG’s purchase, I dove a bit deeper into her trading history and found that our top AI stock wasn’t the only investment she made that week. According to Capitol Trades, a website that tracks the trading action of 213 U.S. politicians, Greene made 11 relatively small investments that week, including some of the top names in tech:
In this case, I’m hesitant to make a direct connection to potential insider trading. Instead, it seems like MTG is simply bullish on the overall economy (with a healthy investment in Treasurys to boot).
But it’s worth pointing out that MTG seems to be shifting away from Mag 7 stocks like Nvidia (NVDA), which she purchased on multiple occasions over the last year, and into a more diversified mix like I’ve been recommending.
To good profits,
Adam O’Dell,
Grey Swan
P.S. from Addison: Andrew Zaltin is going live with his research on Congressional trading – and how to profit from it – this Thursday. Click here to sign up for a spot.
Until Congress chooses to self-regulate… or gets“DOGE-d” itself… understanding Congressional trades can help you understand how trends behind the scenes in Washington affect stock prices on Wall Street.
This project is a good idea. And it’s going to be the source of endless themes for us to follow in Grey Swan. For a full preview, your spot is once click away. Click here.
Send your comments to addison@greyswanfraternity.com
