Company Launches New Congressional Wealth Tracker
A co-founder of Quiver Quantitative, Chris Kardatzke, tells the Sun that they ‘wanted to give people the ability to track how much money politicians are making in the markets in real-time.’
The field of companies tracking the personal finances of public officials is growing, with one launching a new dashboard keeping tabs on the net worth of members of Congress.
In the past few years, financial companies and press outlets have tracked the personal fortunes of members of Congress, the idea being to publicize or profit off of elected officials whose portfolios seem to consistently outperform the market.
The newest addition to the field of companies tracking the finances of members of Congress is Quiver Quantitative, which launched a dashboard that serves as a leaderboard of sorts for members of Congress and their wealth. The company has also started putting out statements when members of Congress make big trades, like one Wednesday when the company reported, “Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has sold all of his Comcast stock,” totaling about $600,000 in assets.
In the latest update for the congressional wealth leaderboard, a senator of Florida, Rick Scott, had the highest net worth, followed by Speaker Pelosi and Senator Romney.
Mr. Scott made his fortune working at a healthcare company, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation. Today, according to Quiver Quantitative, Mr. Scott is worth about $326 million. Following Mr. Scott is Ms. Pelosi, who is reportedly worth about $240 million.
Ms. Pelosi’s wealth has been made largely from fees for delivering speeches during her tenure as speaker. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, runs a lucrative investment firm, Financial Leasing Services, with investments in companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.
Mr. Romney, according to Quiver Quantitative, is worth about $238 million. Before entering Congress, Mr. Romney worked in management consulting and was a co-founder of a private equity firm, Bain Capital.
In a statement to the Sun, a co-founder of Quiver Quantitative, Chris Kardatzke, says that the company “wanted to give people the ability to track how much money politicians are making in the markets in real-time.”
“It’s not uncommon for politicians to make much more through outside sources like the stock market than through their salaries as elected officials, and we wanted to highlight possible conflicts of interest that arise from that situation,” Mr. Kardatzke says.
