Ron's post yesterday about SEC nominee Christopher Cox's financial disclosures took me by surprise.
Why? Just last month, I noted that Cox was late with his 2004 Congressional financial disclosure form (normally due in May). But I dismissed it because, "he and his wife primarily hold simple investments in indexed funds, and I'm sure the White House would know by now if there were any dramatic changes."
Oops. Even obscured by the fact that assets are reported in ranges, his disclosure to the Senate Banking Committee bears little resemblance to the simple portfolio he submitted to Congress last year.
For starters, his only stock holding a year ago was $1001-$15,000 in Coca-Cola. According to news reports, he now boasts between a quarter and a half a million dollars worth of Coke stock (did I miss a Coke split or something?), as well as more than $750,000 in mining and gold company stocks.
There's nothing untoward about diversifying your portfolio. But by my calculation, the maximum value of Cox's assets at year end 2003 was $2,430,000. I figured that by adding up the top end of the range for each asset he listed.
One year later, his minimum worth is $2.7 million. (He could have upwards of $11.4 million).
Even if he's now worth only $2.7 million, that's still a decent year. Subtracting his year's salary from the difference, his investments must have returned 6.5%.
Of course, I'm missing some important info, like his lobbyist wife's salary. And I'm relying on news reports like this one to do the math on Cox's new form correctly, since it's not on the Senate Banking Committee's site.
Still, it's odd. He more than doubled the number of mutual funds in his portfolio and went into gold and stocks in a big way. Why?
And why do his assets have to be at the top of every range in 2003 in order to just barely match up wiht the bottom of every range in 2004?
Could that be why he needed the extension? |
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