house speaker nancy pelosi scoffed wednesday at the idea of banning congressional lawmakers and their spouses from owning stock shares of individual companies despite the possibilities for conflicts of interest between their legislative duties and personal finances no pelosi dcalif told reporters at a press conference where she was asked whether she would support such a prohibition were a freemarket economy she said they should be able to participate in that pelosis dismissal of the idea of a stockpurchase ban came in response to a question about a business insider investigative report this week on stock ownership by lawmakers and after controversies over stock purchases by a number of senators since the beginning of the covid19 pandemic the business insider series found that 49 members of congress and 182 seniorlevel congressional staffers had violated the socalled stock act which requires the public disclosure by themselves and family members within 45 days of sales or purchases of individual stocks bonds and commodity futures the stop trading on congressional knowledge act which became law in 2012 is supposed to prevent lawmakers and staffers from engaging in trading on information they glean from their jobs as well as conflicts of interest but violations of the stock act if sanctioned at all usually result in fines of just 200 we have a responsibility to report stock trades pelosi said wednesday the speaker said that she was not familiar with the findings of the business insider series but if people arent reporting stock trades they should be pelosi added earlier monday securities and exchange commission chairman gary gensler called for tougher rules limiting stock trading by corporate chief executive officers and other top executives in october the federal reserve announced a wideranging ban on officials of that central bank owning individual stocks and bonds that ban came on the heels of the resignations of two federal reserve regional presidents robert kaplan of dallas and eric rosengren of boston after disclosures that they had traded individual securities in 2020 their trades came as the coronavirus rocked markets and while the fed itself was engaging in massive purchases of assets aimed at keeping markets stable