David Rouzer: North Carolina’s very own ‘Wolf of Wall Street’?

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We’ve recently discovered a very interesting Twitter / X feed called @unusual_whales.

If you’re not following it, you probably should.  It’s run by some longtime finance and investing wizards who keep track of the utterly amazing success of Members of Congress in the stock market.  (Major activity – lots of buying and selling — related to industries these politicians regulate via their committees. Bills they push that appear to be tied to stuff they invest in. That kind of thing.) 

These folks in Congress often get really juicy, really important information well before we, or the news media, do. Imagine being able to invest in certain telecommunications firms (to facilitate working from home or germ-free meetings) right before the public hears about upcoming COVID quarantine measures.

One of the feed’s recent projects was tracking how well some members of Congress did in 2023 in the stock market.   As a comparison, something called SPY was thrown in for comparison.  Now, what is SPY in terms of finance and investing?:

In other words, if you get a higher return on your investments than SPY does on its investments, you have officially beaten the market and are a bona fide Wall Street wizard.

Let’s look at a chart compiled by @unusual_whales showing the 2023 investment performance of some Members of Congress in comparison with SPY.

Okay.  I “spy” three North Carolina politicians on this list:  Democrats Kathy Manning and Deborah Ross, and Republican David Rouzer.  All three had substantially more investing success than SPY.

You may notice that SPY had a 24.8 percent return for 2023.   Kathy Manning had a 33.4 percent return for 2023.  Deborah Ross had 46.1 percent.  David Rouser blew both of them, AND SPY, away with a whopping 105.6 percent return for the year.

(Members of Congress are required to report and update details on what they invest in with filings submitted to the House Clerk.)

According to Rouzer’s official web site, his committee assignments center primarily on Transportation & Infrastructure as well as Agriculture.

If this report is accurate, Rouzer had a phenomenal year in the market when an awful lot of people were struggling.  It’s an amazing performance for a guy whose career experience includes lobbying, staff work on Capitol Hill, and a stint in the NC Senate — apparently NOTHING in the financial sector.

Perhaps David Rouzer is following the wrong career path.  Perhaps this has uncovered some real finance and investing talent.  Perhaps this North Carolinian — with this kind of success — needs to be on Wall Street instead of Capitol Hill.   He beat the guys on Wall Street BAD.

Maybe he needs to join them — show ’em how it’s done.