Last month, package delivery giant UPS had very rough day. Or to put it more accurately, their shareholders had a rough day. But to be even more accurate, I should say most of their shareholders had a rough day. The company released its second-quarter earnings report and it was far below what most investors on Wall Street had projected. As soon as the news broke, the company's stock sank like a stone, plunging more than 12% in a single day. It was the largest single-day drop in stock value that the company ever registered. But as alluded to above, not everyone took such a hard hit. In what must have been one of the most fortuitous twists of good fortune seen in recent memory, Republican Congressman Michael Burgess of Texas just happened to sell his UPS stock the day before the crash. Having gotten the requisite sarcasm out of the way, needless to say, this is raising eyebrows among those who keep an eye out for insider trading activity among elected officials. (FINBOLD)

In a move raising eyebrows, U.S. Congressman Michael Burgess sold shares of United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) on July 22, just a day before the stock experienced its worst day in history. 

On July 23, UPS released a dismal Q2 earnings report that sent the stock plummeting.

Following the report, UPS shares fell from $145.18 to $127.68, a dramatic 12% drop. This marked the stock’s steepest single-day decline, as investors reacted to the company’s weaker-than-expected performance. Since then, UPS has recovered slightly, trading at $130.64 at the time of publication.

The timing of Burgess’s sale has been labeled one of the more suspicious transactions of the year, given that it occurred just before UPS revealed its disappointing financial performance, which led to a sharp decline in the stock’s value.

Capitol Trades reports that the value of the stock that Burgess sold was $8,000, so it's not exactly a fortune, but that's not really the point. Could this have simply been a case of unbelievable good luck? I suppose anything is hypothetically possible, but you're asking a lot of Lady Fortune to get that lucky. But let's say it wasn't just luck. With the connections available to members of Congress, we can't rule out the possibility that Burgess knows someone who had early access to the UPS earnings report. If that's the case, he was engaging in insider trading. (Burgess isn't saying thus far.)

If you use insider information to turn a profit for yourself when the people you serve have no such access, you're a fairly reprehensible person. (I'm not saying that Burgess definitely did that, but this situation smells pretty bad.) Sadly, if that's what he was doing he is far from the only one. Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul have long been famous (or infamous) for being unbelievably "lucky" in the stock market. Several brokerage firms have begun offering shares in portfolios that mimic the stock trades of the Pelosis and they have attracted more than $50 million in investments already. 

A similar fund has been set up to mimic the trades of Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw. He's another one who seems to do awfully well with his investments. When reporters - including some at Fox News - have brought this uncomfortable news up, Crenshaw has fired back angrily, insisting that all of his trades are lawful and he has no privileged information. He must just be really intuitive, right? 

Something needs to be done about this situation. Even if all of these people are somehow telling the truth and they're just the luckiest investors in the country, the look of these activities stinks to high heaven. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger has introduced a bill named the TRUST in Congress Act. It would not ban members from owning stock, but it would require them to place all of their investments into an approved blind trust fund while they are serving in office. It would ban members from making any trades of individual stocks, eliminating the situation we just observed with Congressman Burgess. Curiously, she isn't attracting a lot of support from her fellow members for this bill yet. You have to wonder why that might be.