Trade the Congressional Effect: How To Profit from Congress's Impact on the Stock Market

Chapter 10

Are Lame Ducks, Impeachments, Resignations, Vetoes, and Litigated Elections Good for the Market?

I once had the chance to meet Congressman Bob Barr in 2008 when he was running as a Libertarian candidate for president. The occasion was Freedom Fest in Las Vegas. It was a historic first meeting between Congressman Barr and his vice presidential running mate, Wayne Allen Root. Congressman Barr had made a short speech to the crowd about how we should do everything we could for liberty. Wayne Allen Root, who has a lively, talk radio personality, stressed that there was no better place in the world for the Libertarian Party to wave its flag and to start its campaign than Las Vegas, where people were free to gamble and use legal prostitutes.

Wayne said it with a twinkle in his eye, but it was clear that Congressman Barr, a Baptist from Georgia, was a little bit ill at ease with Wayne's celebration of Las Vegas's gestalt. After all, he had been unwittingly featured in the movie Borat with a prank by Sacha Baron Cohen where he thought that Baron Cohen was actually from a trade delegation from a country in central Asia. Baron Cohen gave him some cheese to eat and asked if he liked it. Congressman Barr replied, “It's very tasty,” with a full mouth, at which point Baron Cohen revealed the human source of the milk used to make the cheese, causing Congressman Barr to almost lose his mouthful of cheese.

Sensing the congressman was not naturally at ease in Las Vegas, I sought to engage ...