How Do You Do, Fellow Insiders?

Nobody has ever seriously accused the stock market of being fair, and the sentiment that retail investors are mostly just bled to fertilize the gated garden of insider gains has never been stronger than it is right now.

Stories about the trading success of high profile elected officials like Nancy Pelosi and appointed officials like Jerome Powell are reliable engagement bait, because their capital markets success offends our sense of justice. Of course they’re ahead of the action. They create policy and know when it’s going to be implemented. For them, trading is like betting on a game that already happened, and it stings, because we’re the rubes at the bar that they’ve convinced to take the other side of their action on a replay.

The investment success of Powell, Pelosi and any other elected official is better documented than the supposed success of any of the stock trading “gurus” who plague the financial internet because, while there generally aren’t any hard rules about what officials can and can’t trade, they are required to file records of their trades. The disclosure windows are generally too wide for a member of the unwashed masses to front-run the officials’ apparent inside knowledge, but we in the content game don’t need any kind of window to write something that makes an audience seethe at the people stacking the deck.

So we write stories about it, and investors read them and get angry and post about it in the forums or on twitter, then come back and get Big Mad about it some more, because it’s cathartic, and what else is there to do about it? Stop trading?

The modern engagement specialists who are a generation ahead of us suckers still trying to gut it out as freelance bloggers have created clever Pelosi and Powell themed twitter parodies that go beyond the audience’s natural sense that this is deeply unfair, and loop in their compulsion for instant gratification. The Powell account was around long before its real life counterpart’s trades became content filler, and is mostly just wise-ass comments. But to the extent that the “Pelosi Tracker” is reporting actual trades made by the real-life US Speaker, it’s based in real life. Calling it a news-source would be a bit of a stretch, but you just know it’ll never miss any of Nancy’s actual financial disclosure reports.

The Pelosi-tracker makes no secret of its affiliation with subscription newsletter service alphaletter.co, which this column doesn’t know enough to comment on, other than to express our respect for its marketing chops.

But it never takes long for someone to invent a better mouse trap.

The Steve Buscemei Portfolio tracker has been chronicling the investment activities of “Steve Buscemei” for less than a week now. This is functionally impossible, of course, because Buscemi isn’t subject to any filing requirements that we’re aware of, but the fact that the account is a parody isn’t immediately obvious. None of the posts are outright jokes.

“Steve” didn’t short Netflix after an advanced insider screening of The Many Saints of Newark or anything like that. The posts just claim Buscemi was in on stocks that made recent big moves on news, mix in a still from one of the character actors’ classic movies, and reminds the audience that “if they aren’t mad, they aren’t paying attention.”

Our own half-assed attempt at tracking down the fintwit Andy Kaufman behind this work of art yielded a spurious association to the very funny parody team at @hardmoneymag, but we can’t confirm anything at this time, and won’t keep trying.

The (accidental?) genius of this particular parody is in the audience reactions. Some basic investigation and critical thinking is all it takes to see that it isn’t what it says it is, but doing that work runs contrary to the inclinations of today’s successful momentum-based traders. Does it even matter if these are really Steve Buscemei’s trades?

Reservoir Dogs: Did Steve Buscemi's Mr Pink Survive The Movie?

Mr. Pink Doesn’t Tip… Yet.

Conceivably, if the account gets big enough, it will be able to drop a ticker that “Steve” is looking into and make the market move, because veracity doesn’t have anything to do with this, and everybody is completely over pretending that it ever did.

Monday, in a tryhard move that was largely ignored, because it’s too boring to laugh at, someone put a giant statue of Harambe the gorilla and a truckload of bananas opposite Wall St.’s charging bull statue.

7-foot tall Harambe statue appears opposite of Charging Bull covered in  bananas | PIX11

Organizers told NBC4 New York that it was a statement about how, “Wall St. had become bananas, and was out of touch with the needs of everyday people,” as if this was some kind of recent phenomenon, and not the baseline norm. Presumably, the brains behind this stunt, the “Sapien Network,” has some kind of plan to address this, but details are scarce.

According to co-founder Robert Giometti, “It’s not about rejecting capitalism or the current system, it’s about revolving them into the current future and letting them empower more groups of people,” which is meaningless drivel. The Sapien website consists of an inspirational video of equally meaningless drivel, and an invitation to “join the tribe,” which is a sure way to land on the receiving end of some pitch for some investment product of some kind. It strikes us as a lot of effort to go through to build a pitch list. If the folks down at Sapiens had half the imagination they’re trying to act like they have, they’d have started a trade tracker twitter account.

Bob Servability on Twitter: "It took 25 years and just as many re-watchings  of Pulp Fiction to realize that the Buddy Holly waiter was played by Steve  Buscemi.… https://t.co/AFPxV8KqMm"
It’s widely believed that Steve Buscemi’s uncredited appearance as waiter in Pulp Fiction is Mr. Pink, hiding out.

Information for this briefing was found via Edgar and the companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.

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