This week in power × markets

the briefing · 2026-07-08

Congressional traders keep gravitating toward the exchanges their committees help oversee, with the plumbing of the markets themselves — $ICE, $CME, $CBOE, $COIN — drawing both member trades and fresh CFTC/SEC signals. Meanwhile, corporate insiders spent July 7 cashing out.

• The exchange cluster is the standout convergence: $ICE, $COIN, and $CME each drew three members trading alongside paired CFTC and SEC signals, while $CBOE added a single member plus an SEC signal — lawmakers trading the very market infrastructure federal regulators are actively touching.
• $BA led defense-adjacent activity with 7 members trading against Federal Contract and USTR signals, while $LMT (3 members) and $PLTR (6 members) both overlap with Executive Action signals — and $PLTR's Shyam Sankar and others sold roughly $48.1M in open-market insider sales the same day.
• On the consensus board, $MSFT remains the caucus darling (18 members, 41 buys/28 sells) with 6 committee-sector overlaps, trailed by $AAPL (18 members, 3 overlaps) and $NVDA (12 members) — even as Nancy Pelosi disclosed selling $AAPL in the $5M–$25M range.
• Insiders headed for the exits: Arista's Andreas Bechtolsheim sold ~$78.1M of $ANET, Workday's David Duffield ~$26.9M of $WDAY, and exchange operator $MIAX saw five executives, including GC Barbara Comly, unload ~$15.2M — the rare open-market buyer being $VFLEX, where President Michael Peck and Treasurer Chad Eisenberg picked up ~$13M.

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