Senators are really good at trading stock--a little too good. Is there something fishy here?

Mixing business and pleasure is risky, but mixing business and politics is just downright shady. Especially in the 1993 to 1998 period where the market was booming, and United States Senators were making a killing. In fact, they were doing a little too well.

The majority of Senators traded stocks during that period and managed to beat the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. If you think that's nothing, by comparison the corporate insiders who study the market managed to beat the market by 5 percent and most households underperformed by 1.4 percent. Are there savvy traders or unethical dealings going on in the Senate?

Unlike other federal employees, Congress members aren't required to recuse themselves when they have a financial interest in a law or legislation. It's also pretty tough to check out their records, as they keep them fairly opaque.

The vast majority of the trades were less than $15,000, with over half of the 6,000 stock trades being attributed to just four lawmakers. However, of all 62 senators that participated in trading stocks, they all showed a similar success pattern.

(Source)