Peter Mallouk, the president and CEO of RIA giant Creative Planning, has made a public plea calling for new regulations to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
“Members of Congress - Republican or Democrats - should not be allowed to trade individual stocks. This shouldn’t be hard to ban, but neither party will do it. So offensive to the people they 'serve',” Mallouk wrote in a recent post on his LinkedIn.
Mallouk, whose Creative Planning firm - one of the largest RIAs valued at a reported $16 billion - included a screenshot in his post of a June 21 New York Post article that reported on stock gains from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. More than 800 users reacted to Mallouk’s post and over 40 commented with many echoing their dismay over politicians trading stocks.
The California democrat and her husband, venture capitalist Paul Pelosi, reportedly added between $7.8 and $42.5 million to their net worth in 2024, as their investment portfolio pulled in an estimated 54% return in 2024, more than double the S&P 500’s 25% gain. Pelosi’s notorious portfolio has inspired apps such as Autopilot, which has $400 million in client assets copying her stock market trades.
Co-founder Chris Josephs said in May that Autopilot was “one of the fastest growing RIAs in America,” upon hitting $750 million in total client AUM. Autopilot also plans to onboard users from custodians such as Fidelity and Schwab, further signaling the startup's push into the RIA ecosystem.
Members of congress face criticism over potential conflicts of interest in trading stocks in the same industries where they may vote on impactful legislation, or are potentially privy to market-moving events or legislation that prompts suspiciously well-timed stock trades. Pelosi is far from the only political figure with controversial holdings. President Donald Trump holds an official meme coin, alongside his family’s several other ventures tied to the crypto industry.
“Nor should our elected officials be able to create and trade NFTs and Crypto currencies,” Holly Melton, Director of Development at the Drew Lewis Foundation, commented under Mallouk’s LinkedIn post, to which Mallouk wrote back, “100%” in agreement.
President Barack Obama made an effort to combat insider trading in 2012 when he signed the Stock Act into law, but members of Congress can still own individual stocks as long as they properly disclose them. In 2024, a bipartisan group of senators including Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) proposed new legislation to bar lawmakers and their spouses from buying stocks, and a similar bill was re-introduced by Democrats in May.
Rajesh Markan earlier this year pleaded guilty to one count of criminal fraud related to his sale of fake investments to 10 clients totaling $2.9 million.
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