WASHINGTON _ Rep. Susan Davis of California and her husband sold stocks related to travel and tourism less than two weeks after members of the House of Representatives received a closed-door briefing on the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
The revelation comes on the back of news reports of Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and others selling stocks after receiving classified briefings by administration officials on the coronavirus threat.
The House had a briefing on the coronavirus threat that was exclusive to all members on Jan. 29, according to an invitation obtained by McClatchy. Briefers included Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
McClatchy's analysis of financial disclosure reports of members of Congress found that Davis, a retiring Democrat who represents the San Diego area, sold part of her stocks of Miami-based cruise line giant, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and her husband sold his stocks of Alaska Air on Feb. 11, 2020 _ 13 days after the briefing.
On the same day, her husband purchased stocks in California-based high-speed broadband service provider, ViaSat Inc., and Baidu, the Chinese counterpart of Google.
Aaron Hunter, a spokesman for Davis, said a third party handles her portfolio.
"(She) does not play a role in the purchase or sale of her stocks," Hunter said.
Davis' sale of her shares in the cruise line was worth between $1,001 and $15,000. The other three stock trades were between $15,001 to $50,000. Congressional rules require reports to state only ranges and not precise figures.
All four of these transactions took place nine days before the stock market began to rapidly plummet on Feb. 20. There were smaller market losses starting on Feb. 12.
The couple also purchased and sold stocks that either seem unrelated to the epidemic or seemed counterintuitive to knowledge of the upcoming epidemic.
According to financial disclosure reports, Davis also purchased stocks in Vestas Wind Systems and her husband partially sold his shares in Fortinet Inc. on the same day they carried out the other transactions. Both these trades ranged between $15,001 and $50,000. Fortinet is a cybersecurity software company.
McClatchy's analysis found Rep. Davis had invested in Royal Caribbean Cruises in 2014 and her husband in Alaska Air in 2017 and 2018. The disclosure reports show that Rep. Davis had sold some of her stocks in the cruise-line in 2016, 2018 and 2019 as well. McClatchy did not find any evidence of sales of Alaska Air stocks prior to Feb. 11, 2020.
Since the disclosure reports only state ranges, it is unclear the exact amount of value Rep. Davis would have potentially lost had she kept the stocks.
The stock in Royal Caribbean Cruises fell by about $85 since Feb. 11, from $113 to $28 per stock. Davis pulled between $10,001 and $15,000 in stock in the company, meaning she would've lost between $750 and $11,300 on the cruise line, depending on where in that range she invested.
In their sale transactions, the Davis family potentially saved between $14,300 and $58,000 in total.
However, they didn't make any quick gains from their new investments either. The impact of the pandemic and the subsequent volatility of the global stock market also meant that they potentially lost $18,500 to $62,000 from their new investments in Baidu, ViaSat and Vestas Wind Systems, all of which saw their stock fall as of Friday.
