Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, sold $3.5 million in stock on February 26, a month after his wife, Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, received a closed-door briefing about the covid-19 threat. According to SEC filings, Sprecher sold $15.3 million more in stock on March 11, at the beginning of the crash that has seen trillions of dollars wiped from the financial markets. Both stock sales were of Intercontinental Exchange (known as ICE), the company that owns the NYSE, and of which Sprecher just happens to be CEO.
The revelations about Sprecher come from a new report by CBS News, which examined filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Loeffler’s own stock sales recently made headlines after it was revealed that she sold millions in stock the same day she received a closed-door January 26 briefing on the potential impact of the covid-19 pandemic. Loeffler denies having any knowledge of the sales done in her name.
What makes Sprecher’s stock sales a scandal? For one, they should have been reported as part of Loeffler’s financial disclosures, but were not. Senators have been required to give periodic financial disclosures since 2012 and those filings include any sales and purchases made by the politician’s spouse.
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his wife had secret information about a global pandemic and both of them unloaded while she kept publicly saying everything was fine and dandy.
In fact, this was the video Loeffler posted to Twitter on March 10, the day before her husband unloaded $15.3 million worth of stock in his own company.
Sprecher and Loeffler are reportedly worth at least $500 million. Capitalism may be on its last legs during the covid-19 pandemic, but you can bet that millionaires and billionaires will do everything they can to keep it afloat. Even if a few million people have to die.
Source: New York Stock Exchange Chairman Sold Millions in Stock Before Crash
Robin Edgar
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