Rep. Earl Blumenauer's (D-OR) wife, Margaret D. Kirkpatrick, is known for making stock trades through her retirement portfolio that have raised questions.
But according to the Washington Examiner, one of her latest trades did not work out well in her favor.
Just one day before the historic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last month, Kirkpatrick picked up somewhere in the neighborhood of between $1,001 and $15,000 in shares of SVB.
The trade came a day after the bank, which was home to giant piles of money from nearly half of the startups in Silicon Valley, and many other large tech businesses, announced it was in trouble, and needed to raise $2.2 billion and announced it sold $21 billion in assets.
Kirkpatric purchased the stock at that point in time at about $106 per share.
But as is now well known, on March 10, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) seized control of the bank as it went under, which sparked realistic fears of a massive wave of bank collapses.
MOST MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE VERY GOOD TRADERS
BUT THEN THERE ARE SOME MEMBERS LIKE CONGRESSMEN EARL BLUMENAUER WHO BOUGHT SHARES OF SILICON VALLEY BANK THE DAY BEFORE THE BANK COLLAPSED PER @GURGAVIN $SIVB $SIVBQ pic.twitter.com/eyylasUkye
— GURGAVIN (@gurgavin) April 6, 2023
After the bank was taken over by the federal government, shares eventually plummeted, sending the stock price down to as low as .40 cents per share.
As of now, SVB shares still trade at less than $1 per share, leaving the congressman and his wife in the deep red on that particular transaction.
Another congressman just disclosed trades of bank stocks made in the midst of the bank crisis.
Representative Earl Blumenauer sold stock in Bank of America ( $BAC ) and First Republic Bank ( $FRC ) in March and bought stock in Silicon Valley Bank ( $SIVB ). pic.twitter.com/6HXjYUh6Bo
— Quiver Quantitative (@QuiverQuant) April 6, 2023
The Examiner noted:
Blumenauer's wife also sold up to $15,000 in shares of First Republic Bank on March 20, according to the Wednesday filing. The San Francisco-based bank secured $30 billion in deposits on March 16 from 11 major U.S. banks, including Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, as the financial industry worried about market volatility due to the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank.
Kirkpatrick has been under fire from several watchdog groups demanding a higher level of transparency and accountability regarding extremely timely stock trades that netted huge profits.
Given that she's the wife of a congressman privy to information that the general public is not, she, and all lawmakers and their spouses, should be playing by a much stricter set of rules.
That's the one idea that has wide bipartisan support, and Congress would be wise to come together on the issue, as Americans are sick and tired of elected officials coming into office with nothing and ending their terms as millionaires. It's too obvious.
