A Greedy Wo/Man Will Sell You A Rope, That You Can Use To Hang Her/Him With
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Obama Owns Stock in Gun and Ammo Manufacturers, Profiting From His Policies
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/22487-obama-owns-stock-in-gun-and-ammo-manufacturers-profiting-from-his-policies
Sunday, 07 February 2016
Obama Owns Stock in Gun and Ammo Manufacturers, Profiting From His Policies
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
Obama Owns Stock in Gun and Ammo Manufacturers, Profiting From His Policies
While with his infamous “pen and ... phone” President Barack Obama has acted to limit the availability of guns and ammunition; with his investments he profits from the purchase of both these objects which have “taken a heartbreaking toll on too many communities across the country.”
A special report published by Reuters on February 5 reveals that President Obama owns stock in a couple of manufacturers of guns and ammunition.
From Reuters:
From his days in the Illinois General Assembly, President Obama has up to $100,000 invested in a nearly $16 billion state pension plan, which has about $5 million invested directly in several gun and ammo makers. The retirement plan, which covers state employees, judges and the general assembly, also holds shares in a small-cap mutual fund with a $9.5 million stake in Smith & Wesson.
While this is admittedly a minuscule amount of money for one a man of the president’s net worth ($7 million as of 2014), the inconsistency between his advocacy of tighter gun controls and his increase in personal prosperity from the increased demand for weapons and ammunition is noteworthy.
As The New American has reported, President Obama has signed numerous executive orders (edicts masquerading as valid law) restricting the right of Americans to purchase, sell, trade, and own firearms and the ammunition that make them useful.
Such a seizure of power is inarguably tyrannical. While there may be millions who depend on the tyranny for their living and millions of others who support the tyrant’s usurpation as something good, there can be no doubt that for a president to issue fiats from the White House effectively repealing the Second Amendment is the act of a tyrant.
As with most of the notorious tyrants of history, President Obama draws near to the people with his lips, but his heart is set on lining his own pockets. Nowhere is this hypocrisy more evident than in the revelation of his ownership of stock in manufacturers of firearms and ammunition.
The effect on the bottom line of these companies since Barack Obama settled in the Oval Office is remarkable. Again, as reported by Reuters:
Since Obama was elected in 2009, mutual funds have raised their stakes to about $510 million from $30 million in the nation’s two largest gun manufacturers with publicly traded shares, Smith & Wesson Corp and Sturm, Ruger & Co. That means such stocks are now common in retirement and college savings plans.
The influx has helped to boost both companies' shares by more than 750 percent during the Obama presidency; each now has a market value of about $1 billion.
To many, this double dealing may seem inexplicable. When analyzed economically rather than morally, the problem is solved very easily.
According to principles of supply and demand, when the supply of a good decreases and the demand for that good simultaneously increases, the price ascends proportionally.
That is to say, President Obama’s attack on the gun and ammo industries serves not only to advance his agenda on the Constitution, but to manipulate the price of those two items in a way that favors his personal fortunes.
He can have his cake of decreasing public liberty while eating the cake of increasing personal wealth.
Later in the story of the seeming discrepancy between public policy and personal investment, Reuters painted a clear and condemning picture of the favorable economic developments in the firearm sector that followed Obama’s 2008 election:
By the end of 2015, more than 150 mutual funds owned Smith & Wesson shares, up from 53 at the end of 2008, and nearly 130 held stock in Ruger, up from 52, according to data from Morningstar Inc.
It would have taken investors "minimal due diligence" to see massive profit potential in Ruger stock when Obama was first elected, said Ruger Chief Executive Mike Fifer. Shares hit a low of $4.50 the Friday after that Tuesday election; the stock was changing hands today at $61.61.
"Orders at every level of the distribution channel exploded" the week of Obama's election, Fifer recalled. "And continued to do so for months afterward.”
And, later in the article, the benefit to the president’s portfolio created by his drive to disarm civilians is reported:
“Let’s just say he’s been good for business,” Jack Lesher, manager of Chuck’s Firearms in Atlanta, said of Obama.
Gun sales jumped again recently after the president blasted congressional inaction on gun control and vowed to use executive powers to expand background checks for buyers and bolster licensing requirements for dealers. His announcement followed yet another mass shooting, on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, California, where a couple pledging allegiance to Islamic State killed 14 people.
For the week that ended Dec. 20, firearms background checks - a proxy for guns sales - totaled 839,109, the second-highest week since 1998. Only the week after the Sandy Hook shootings was higher, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Vista’s main factories have churned out bullets 24 hours, seven days a week for at least two years, Vista Chief Financial Officer Stephen Nolan told investors in November.
Now the industry is ready for an election-year surge.
“The politics of gun control could stay in the headlines, which we believe could lead to a record year,” wrote Chris Krueger, senior research analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets, in a note to investors in January.
Ruger is boosting inventories to prepare, after learning a costly lesson going into the last presidential election. Demand peaked that year, based on the number of FBI background checks sought for new gun purchases. The surge followed Obama’s re-election and the Sandy Hook shooting.
“When we went into late 2011, we got cleaned out of inventory ... even though we increased production dramatically,” company CEO Fifer told investors during a November conference call.
Regardless, there will be those who will defend the president’s profiting from the companies whose wares have contributed to the crisis of public safety in which “more than 100,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence.”
These advocates will point out that the president’s percent of ownership in these industries is indirect and insignificant. Both of those adjectives are apt, but they do not accurately describe the bigger picture.
“Obama and his tiny stake are typical of most Americans with holdings in firearms investments: They are invested in funds that buy shares of the relatively small part of the firearms industry that is publicly traded. But collectively, their investments are a boon to the gun industry and amount to a sizable stake in major gun and ammo makers,” Tim McLaughlin and Peter Eisler write in the Reuters story.
Not surprisingly, Reuters notes that “The White House declined to comment on Obama’s holdings in the Illinois General Assembly’s pension plan, which he earned while serving in that state’s senate.”
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Democrats Vilify Guns, Own Stock in Gun Companies - Breitbart
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/01/22/hypocrisy-101-democrats-vilify-guns-but-own-stock-in-gun-companies/
by AWR Hawkins22 Jan 2013170
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Several Democrats who have come out against the evils of guns since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary have also made money by investing in gun companies. Many are still making money with investments in those manufacturers now, even as they attempt to ban their products.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), for example, is a proponent of an “assault weapons” ban, who in the meantime is enjoying the money her husband makes off a $50,000 investment in the Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index fund. As of Jan. 18, that fund included 219,918 shares of stock in Ruger Firearms.
Meanwhile, Senator Clair McCaskill (D-MO) has approximately $100,000 in the iShare Russell 2000 Growth Index. That fund held 254,290 shares of stock in Ruger Firearms as of Jan. 18, along with shares of Smith & Wesson as well.
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has approximately $100,000 in the iShares S&P Small Cap 600 Growth Index–a fund which was the “the 16th largest holder” of Ruger Firearms stock as of mid-January.
It’s not just individual investments, either: city pensions in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago own significant shares of funds that are heavily invested in gun companies, as are city pensions in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s New York City.
In Chicago, the city’s teachers’ retirement fund has about $12 million partially invested in the company that owns Bushmaster firearms–makers of the AR-15 Adam Lanza used at Sandy Hook–as well as funds that include shares of Ruger Firearms and Smith & Wesson.
Investing in gun companies makes sense for these Democrats if they want to make money: since Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008, the value of a share of Ruger Firearms alone has gone from approximately five dollars to fifty-two dollars in Jan. 2013.
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US gunmaker shares soar after Pulse nightclub massacre
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/13/gun-company-stocks-rise-orlando-pulse-attack
Shares in two biggest gun manufacturers, Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger & Co, rose by 10% and 9% amid fears US will impose tougher gun control measures
Orlando terror attack US gun sales
Smith & Wesson sold a record $627m worth of guns and accessories last year.
Rupert Neate in New York
@RupertNeate
Monday 13 June 2016 10.30 EDT
Last modified on Wednesday 15 June 2016 03.04 EDT
Gun company shares soared on Monday as traders predicted that Americans will react to the Orlando massacre by rushing out to arm themselves with more guns.
Shares in the two biggest listed US gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger & Co rose by 11% and 10% in early trading and ended the day up 6.8% and 8.5% respectively.
Gun companies shares have risen strongly after every recent mass shooting incident as investors speculate that the atrocities might lead to tougher gun control measures. Fear that stricter gun laws might be enacted cause more people to buy guns, especially semi-automatic assault rifles like the AR-15 used by Orlando killer.
Smith & Wesson, which sold a record $627m worth of guns and accessories last year, is expected to report even higher sales this year when it releases its full-year results on Thursday.
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In its most recent quarterly earnings, in March, the company said sales were up 61.5%, which its British chief executive James Debney credited to the “long-term trend toward personal protection”. Sales in the quarter came in at $211m, and the company doubled its gross profit to $87m.
S&W’s share price has already rise 39% in the last 12 years, making it one of the best performing investments on the US stock markets. Sturm Ruger’s shares have risen about 6%.
On Sunday Barack Obama said the Orlando attack – “an act of terror and an act of hate” – once again showed that the nation needs to introduce tougher gun control laws. “This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or in a nightclub,” he said.
It was at least the 14th time that Obama has addressed the nation in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting since he took office – and the sixth time in the last year.
After Obama’s emotional call for restrictions on assault rifles in the wake of the San Bernardino attack in California last year, Wall Street analyst Brian Ruttenbur said: “President Obama has actually been the best salesman for firearms”.
Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, legally purchased the .223 caliber AR rifle and Glock handgun he used in the act within the past week, a spokesman for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.
“He is not a prohibited person,” ATF assistant special agent Trevor Velinor said on Sunday. “They can legally walk into a gun dealership and acquire and purchase firearms. He did so. And he did so within the last week or so.”
