Congress Members Shorted U.S. Stocks During the Financial Crisis: Report

Some members of Congress made risky bets with their own money that U.S. stocks or bonds would fall during the financial crisis, a Wall Street Journal analysis of congressional disclosures shows.

According to The Journal’s analysis of congressional disclosures, investment accounts of 13 members of Congress or their spouses show bearish bets made in 2008 via exchange-traded funds — portfolios that trade like stocks and mirror an index. These funds were leveraged; they used derivatives and other techniques to magnify the daily moves of the index they track – WSJ

The biggest hypocrisy in all this is that some of these legislators have publicly criticized short-selling as a practice.

• Become A Funded Futures Trader