Congress Loves These 50 Stocks

Congress likes to trade stocks as much as Raj Rajaratnam.

Pictured above: Raj’s investments not working out too well for him.

A study by Professor Alan Ziobrowski at Georgia State University concluded legislators in Congress make “significant abnormal returns.”

“How do politicians who arrive in Washington, D.C. as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires?” Sarah Palin asked in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s an answer to her question: “We have every reason to believe they are trading on information that the rest of us don’t have,” reports Ziobrowski.

Simply put, members of Congress are making millions through insider trading. Keep in mind, Martha Stewart went to jail and hedge-funder Raj Rajaratnam was fined $92 million (and will also go to jail) because they dabbled in insider trading.

But they were just voters.

Members of Congress have been using non-public information to make stock trades–and there’s no law against it which, technically, mean that they are doing it legally.

How do they get away with it? They just don’t pass a law against themselves, reports CBS News.

“The Securities and Exchange Act does not apply to members of Congress, congressional staff, or even lobbyists,” says Craig Holman at consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen.

Each year, the Center for Responsive Politics researches the finances of the U.S. Congress.

While insider trading laws do not apply to Senators and House members, they are required to file annual disclosures of their holdings and investments.

These are the 50 most popular stocks in Congress, according to the number of members currently invested in each stock:

1. General Electric (NYSE:GE)  94 members
2. Protecter & Gamble (NYSE:PG)  74 members
3. Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO)  72 members
4. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)  70 members
5. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC)  68 members
6. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)  61 members
7. AT&T (NYSE:T)  57 members
8. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC)  54 members
9. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)  54 members
10. Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ)  54 members
11. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM)  53 members
12. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)  51 members
13. Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO)  49 members
14. JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)  49 members
15. PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE:PEP)  47 members
16. Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC)  45 members
17. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKA)  43 members
18. Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS)  41 members
19. Home Depot (NYSE:HD)  40 members
20. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ)  38 members
21. McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD)  38 members
22. Merck & Co (NYSE:MRK)  37 members
23. Citigroup (NYSE:C)  37 members
24. Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT)  35 members
25. Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT)  31 members
26. 3M Co (NYSE:MMM)  30 members
27. Oracle Corp (NASDAQ:ORCL)  30 members
28. Apache Corp (NYSE:APA)  29 members
29. Qualcomm Inc (NASDAQ:QCOM)  28 members
30. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)  27 members
31. Ford Motor (NYSE:F)  26 members
32. Conocophillips (NYSE:COP)  26 members
33. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS)  26 members
34. Time Warner (NYSE:TWX)  26 members
35. United Technologies (NYSE:UTX)  25 members
36. Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX)  25 members
37. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY)  25 members
38. BP (NYSE:BP)  24 members
39. Amgen Inc (NASDAQ:AMGN)  24 members
40. Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK)  24 members
41. Emerson (NYSE:EMR)  24 members
42. Kraft Foods (NYSE:KFT)  24 members
43. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ:TEVA)  24 members
44. Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB)  23 members
45. EMC Corp (NYSE:EMC)  23 members
46. Comcast Corp (NASDAQ:CMCSA)  23 members
47. Altria Group (NYSE:MO)  23 members
48. CVS Caremark (NYSE:CVS)  22 members
49. Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN)  21 members
50. Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:CAT)  21 members

[Editor's note: portions of the above originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet.]