Congress traded these stocks days before tariff news broke

Along with causing significant financial and diplomatic chaos, Liberation Day tariffs and related announcements have proven fertile ground for U.S. politicians to swiftly make vast amounts of money.

The latest round of filings, revealed by Finbold’s Congressional Trading Radar, especially paired with the earlier allegations made by a selection of Democratic lawmakers led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have increased suspicion that many officials knew both which decisions would be unveiled and which impact they would have.

Politicians offloaded Nike stock ahead of NKE plunge to 8-year lows

The Nike (NYSE: NKE) trades were particularly attention-grabbing since the stock experienced a dramatic plunge and is, at its press time price of $55.76, the lowest it has been since 2017.

The fact that Representative Bruce Westerman purchased NKE shares on March 3 and sold on March 20, and that Representative Jefferson Shreve offloaded up to $50,000 worth of the equity on March 31, while the Liberation Day announcement came on April 2, especially increases concerns.

Still, as attention-grabbing as the Nike sales are, they are far from a smoking gun. The company is known for doing most of its production overseas. With President Donald Trump promising high tariffs and the U.S. generally being antagonistic towards China, it didn’t take non-public information to realize NKE could struggle.

NKE stock buys raises more eyebrows than sales

Elsewhere, if selling Nike shares isn’t as suspicious as it appears at first glance, buying NKE stock is.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has come into focus with her numerous Liberation Day trades thanks to her excellent stock picks, closeness with President Trump, and her previous investing record being less than stellar.

Her Nike stock buys only contribute to suspicion as she purchased up to $15,000 worth of the shares on April 4 – the last trading session ahead of what was widely expected to prove Black Monday 2025 – and on April 9 – the day the stock market plunge turned into a historic rally as a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs was announced.

For Greene’s part, the Representative denied any wrongdoing, saying her manager has been making all the trades and commending them for a job well done.

Politicians evade Nvidia’s plunge below $100

The trading activity surrounding the semiconductor giant Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has also drawn much scrutiny as multiple politicians – Robert Bresnahan, Greg Landsman, and Jeffesron Shreve – have been selling in March.

Though also dependent on the international flow of goods, much like most major American corporations, it was not as obvious a victim of the tariffs as Nike. 

Indeed, NVDA has been one of the top-performing stocks of the 2020s. For example, the company added more than $2 trillion to its market capitalization in 2024 and weathered multiple previous restrictions on its China operations without much disturbance.

Nvidia shares’ performance through the trade war, however, stands in stark contrast, especially since they have been spending an increased amount of time trading below $100: levels not seen with such frequency since May 2024. 

Furthermore, some of the shocks that have sent the chipmaker lower, such as Trump’s ban on selling advanced hardware to China or the revelation about Huawei’s advanced chips, have arguably been far more difficult to foresee than Nike’s woes. 

Lastly, though there is no definitive proof that U.S. Representatives or Senators are engaging in insider trading, their activity during the tariff turmoil, the allegations issued by a set of their colleagues, their access to non-public information via oversight committees, and several strange stock market moves in recent weeks have all given renewed momentum to the calls to ban Congressional trading.

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