This Senator Sold Off His FAANG Stocks In October And November Ahead Of Critical December Fed Meeting

A member of Congress has sold off full positions in many technology focused stocks, including several that make up the popular FAANG acronym.

What Happened: U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper is a Democratic senator, serving Colorado in Congress. Hickenlooper beat incumbent Cory Gardner in the 2020 Election to win his seat in Congress.

Prior to serving in Congress, Hickenlooper was the mayor of Denver (2003 to 2011) and Governor of Colorado (2011 to 2019).

The senator recently reported sales of several large positions in stocks. Here is a look at the sales made, as reported by Congresstrading, and the amount range of each transaction.

• Oct. 27: Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: FB), $250,000 to $500,000
• Oct. 29: Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN), $250,000 to $500,000
• Oct. 29: Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), $250,000 to $500,000
• Nov. 1: Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), $250,000 to $500,000
• Nov. 1: Microsoft Inc (NASDAQ: MSFT), $250,000 to $500,000
• Nov. 1: NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), $500,000 to $1,000,000
• Nov. 8: The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD), 15,000 to $50,000 (spouse transaction)
• Nov. 10: Paypal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL), $250,000 to $500,000

Congresstrading highlighted the timing of the report and the sales on Twitter.

“Senator Hickenlooper reported Friday night (to avoid news cycle) that he sold up to $4,000,000 worth of stocks. Looks timely ahead of potential fed interest rate hikes,” Congresstrading tweeted.

Related Link: Here's The New Acronym From Jim Cramer Replacing FAANG 

Why It’s Important: Many technology stocks have had large valuation increases in 2021, including the stocks previously owned by Hickenlooper. Here is a look at the current year-to-date returns of the stocks sold.

• FB: +22%
• AMZN: +4%
• AAPL: +32%
• GOOGL: +66%
• MSFT: +53%
• NVDA: +116%
• TTD: +15%
• PYPL: -20%

As you can see, only one of the stocks sold by Hickenlooper is down on the year. The transactions could have been done ahead of the last Fed meeting of the year, held Dec. 14.

The transactions could also be profit taking and for tax purposes.

Since Hickenlooper's sale of the eight mentioned stocks, PYPL, GOOGL and AMZN are down, MSFT is flat, and the other four stocks are up.

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