👀 Trump Out-Traded Congress

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Trump just out-traded all 535 members of Congress. Combined.

He and his wealth managers executed roughly 28,700 security transactions in the 17 months after his second inauguration, according to Bloomberg.

Congress, all of it, reported about 22,200.

That's around 55 trades a day. Roughly one every 26 minutes, around the clock, weekends included.

Here's the awkward bit 👇

In July, House Republicans passed a stock trading ban for members of Congress, their spouses and dependent kids.

Trump backed it loudly. In his State of the Union, he said it must pass "without delay" so lawmakers can't profit from insider information.

The bill doesn't touch the presidency.

That's the one job with the widest access to U.S. intelligence, plus the power to move entire sectors with an executive order. Or a single social media post before breakfast.

Trump is also the only president this century to disclose active trading of individual stocks. Under the rules he's championing, a lot of that trading would be off-limits if he sat in Congress.

The rulebook has a VIP entrance. 🚪

This is a big change from Trump's first term, when his disclosures were mostly real estate and private ventures. Buildings don't trade 55 times a day.

Now it's thousands of holdings across:

June alone saw more than 1,000 trades, per the Office of Government Ethics disclosure. Notable buys included:

The single biggest move? A June 22 sale of $5M to $25M in the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF $VIG ( ▼ 0.45% ).

That's a $20 million-wide range. Disclosure forms report in bands, so we get a vibe, not a receipt.

Worth noting: these trades are run through wealth managers, and the disclosures don't show who made which call.

But the bigger issue for investors is trust in a level playing field. Retail traders already assume insiders get the good seats. Headlines like this don't help.

Two things to watch:

Markets run on information. The fairness question comes down to who gets it first.

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Diesel just hit a record $6.23 a gallon.

If you drive anything bigger than a Vespa, you've already felt it.

Gasoline isn't far behind. It slipped under $4 this summer and has bounced back to $4.32.

The White House says the disruption is temporary. The people who actually sell the oil? Not so sure.

Here's what's going on

Last week, attacks shut down a crucial Saudi pipeline that let crude bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

That stranded an estimated 2.5 million barrels a day. That's about 105 million gallons, every single day, stuck on the wrong side of the problem.

The timing is brutal. Commercial fuel stocks worldwide have been draining for over six months.

And strategic reserves? They can't be tapped much further. The emergency fund is basically empty.

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told an energy conference in Austin that those buffers "have largely now played out."

His outlook: risks remain "to the upside" over the next few months.

That's CEO for "brace yourself."

For months, China ran on its own stockpiles for nearly half its daily crude needs. That gave global markets some breathing room.

Now it's buying big from international suppliers again. Right as supply got tight.

It's like the world's biggest shopper walking in just as the shelves start emptying.

The Middle East conflict has flared up again, with ships and energy infrastructure being targeted on both sides.

Quantum Capital CEO Wil VanLoh reckons Iran has time on its side and is "willing to suffer."

Hardly a recipe for a quick fix.

Crude futures settled higher Monday after fresh strikes on Saudi energy sites and more attacks on ships.

Prices did ease off early highs, led by diesel, after Trump said Ukraine and Russia agreed to stop hitting each other's energy facilities.

One small catch: neither country has confirmed it. Zelenskyy said Ukraine isn't convinced Russia will stick to any deal.

A truce that only one person seems sure about. Traders cheered, then squinted.

So why should you care if you don't own a tanker?

Translation: expect volatility, and don't bet your budget on cheap fill-ups anytime soon.

The President just called AI fears a "hoax." On speakerphone. At a tech conference.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took a surprise call from Donald Trump at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles on Monday, then put him on speaker for the whole room.

Nothing says "measured policy debate" like a live cameo from the Oval Office 📞

Trump's message: the robots are not coming for us.

"The robots will not be taking over. The AI will not be taking over the rest of the world. The whole thing is a hoax."

Then he made the money case. "The data centers are great. They make people wealthy. They make states wealthy. AI is bigger than the internet."

And the geopolitical case: critics are "playing right into the hands of China."

Huang's reply? "You're right, we're not going to let that happen, sir."

When the guy selling the shovels agrees the gold rush should continue, nobody faints from surprise.

Trump says the U.S. already has enough regulatory and criminal powers over AI companies. He's also accused critics of a "sick conspiracy" against AI and data centers.

The other side of the room is pretty crowded:

All three have raised concerns about AI risks and called for stronger safeguards or slower development.

Calls to slow down got louder after former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned over AI safety concerns.

Here's the twist. Huang also praised Coxon as courageous and said whistleblowers should be taken seriously.

His argument: the debate has created a false choice between fast innovation and safety.

So Huang agreed with the President on speakerphone, then backed the whistleblower on stage. That's a man who sells chips to everyone and would like to keep it that way.

The White House is clearly on Team Build. For companies tied to the AI boom (chipmakers, data center operators, power suppliers), a friendly federal stance reduces one big source of uncertainty for now.

But the safety debate is getting louder, and the people raising it run the biggest AI labs. That's hard to wave away as fringe.

If you own AI exposure, the question worth watching is whether safety concerns turn into actual rules, from Congress, the states, or the companies themselves. Policy can shift faster than a phone call.

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