MTG Caught “Buying The Dip” as AOC Renews Call to Ban Members’ Trades

As the economy tanked, some members of Congress focused on making themselves rich.

Earlier today when I heard Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) was caught “buying the dip,” I thought someone had spotted her getting chewing tobacco from a corner store.

To “buy the dip” is to buy assets at lower prices with hopes that their value quickly goes up. Financial advisors don’t recommend this investment strategy to their clients. There’s simply no way to know if and when the market is going to bottom out – at least for people like you and me…

But if we were members of Congress, we might know in advance that the president plans to make an announcement that is going to swing markets strongly in a specific direction. Based on that information, we might trade a couple days before the announcement (just in case word leaks out) to get a jumpstart on all other traders.

MTG and have been close allies ever since she entered the political stage. Photo credit: Reuters.

If you or I were to “buy the dip” correctly, we would be lucky guessers. Were all of the many members of Congress who get rich off stock trades just really good guessers? Of course not… and that’s why no sitting member of Congress should be able to trade stock.

And just so we’re clear: Members of Congress in both parties engage in this practice. And members of Congress in both parties want to ban the practice.

Trading stock based on access to non-public information is called “insider trading.” It is illegal. It’s why Martha Stewart went to prison. But it’s not easy for investigators to prove non-public information was the specific impetus for the trade. (The Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates insider trading, lost more than 10 percent of staff thanks to Trump and Elon Musk.)

Marketwatchers like Quiver Quantitative, which seeks to help you “trade like an insider,” raised the alarm over a tranche of Taylor Greene’s stock purchases.

Members of Congress are required to disclose all of their trades to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, which makes the disclosures publicly available on its website. That process is not immediate, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has convinced us to circle May 15 on our calendars.

Here’s what we already know based on news events and Greene’s disclosure form filed Monday with the House clerk:

April 2-4: Markets plummet on news of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs
April 4: MTG makes 15 individual trades – ALL purchases
April 5-6: Markets are closed for weekend
April 7-9: MTG may or may not have made trades – will be disclosed later
April 9: Trump says to buy. Pauses tariffs. Greene’s stocks soar, one by 27%

A copy of the disclosure form submitted by Marjorie Taylor Greene showing she “bought the dip.” Source: Clerk of the House of Representatives

---

And just an FYI: Don’t rely on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for investment advice.

“I think today would be a great day to buy stocks,” Speaker Johnson said midday today. The Dow fell more than 1,000 points over the trading period.

Cringe. Was he trying to impress Trump?

---

Here are just a few of the many Democrats who are fighting back:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wrote on social media, “I'm calling for an investigation into whether President Trump manipulated the market to benefit his Wall Street donors—all while working people and small businesses paid the price. Did Trump help insiders cash in on his tariff flip-flopping? It sure looks like corruption.” Yup.

In a press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol today, AOC reiterated her call for a ban on insider trading in Congress. She made clear in her remarks and in social media posts that she will be holding her colleagues accountable.

Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) is pushing Congress to investigate the very real possibility that Trump and the people close to him may have engaged in insider trading. In a letter to the White House with fellow freshman senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the senators state clearly, “The President, his family, and his advisors are uniquely positioned to be privy to and take advantage of non-public information to inform their investment decisions.”

Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA), meanwhile, took on MTG directly, asking at a Capitol Hill press conference, “What did Marjorie Taylor Greene know about the tariff announcements and what stock trades did she make? We need answers.”