A former Federal Reserve governor who retired in August has been found to have listed several stock trades in her 2024 financial disclosure documents that violated the central bank’s ethics rules.
The transactions were detailed in a report released Saturday by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. This review came after the Federal Reserve referred Adriana Kugler’s financial disclosures to its inspector general earlier this year. Kugler, who unexpectedly stepped down from the Fed board on August 8, disclosed more than a dozen individual stock trades, including several made during financial trading “blackout periods.” These blackout periods occur around the times when the Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee meets to set interest rates and other monetary policies.
Among the companies involved in Kugler’s disclosed stock transactions for 2024 were Southwest Airlines, Apple, Caterpillar, and Fortinet. The largest transaction was a purchase of Apple stock in April 2024, valued between $100,000 and $250,000.
The Federal Reserve’s decisions on interest rates and banking regulations can cause significant fluctuations in the prices of stocks, bonds, and other securities. As part of the central bank’s ethics rules, officials must provide 45 days’ notice before making any trades and secure approval for such transactions. They are also required to publicly disclose any trades made within the previous 30 days.
Importantly, Federal Reserve officials are prohibited from engaging in financial transactions during the blackout periods — roughly 10 days before a Fed meeting and one day after the meeting ends — which happen about eight times a year.
Kugler’s disclosures include a sale of stock in Palo Alto Networks valued between $50,000 and $100,000, and a stock purchase in Cava Group for approximately $1,000 to $15,000, both occurring in March 2024 within a week of that month’s Fed policymaking meeting. She also reported another Cava Group stock purchase in April of the same range, as well as a sale of Southwest Airlines stock valued between $15,000 and $50,000 during the blackout period before the Fed meeting that began April 30, 2024.
The report also notes that “certain trading activity was carried out by Dr. Kugler’s spouse, without Dr. Kugler’s knowledge, and she affirms that her spouse did not intend to violate any rules or policies.”
In 2022, the Federal Reserve adopted sweeping new rules to limit the ability of its top officials to invest in financial markets. These changes were intended to prevent conflicts of interest stemming from investments that could be affected by Fed policies. The move came in response to public outcry over questionable trades made by several senior Fed policymakers.
That same year, Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, acknowledged that many of his financial investments and trades over previous years had violated Fed ethics rules. He revised all his financial statements dating back to 2017, stating that the trades were made by investment managers he did not directly oversee and that he was unaware of the transactions.
Adriana Kugler was appointed to the Fed’s seven-member board of governors by former President Joe Biden in September 2023. She was the first Hispanic Fed governor. Before joining the Fed, Kugler was a professor at Georgetown University and served as the U.S. representative to the World Bank. Following her resignation from the Fed, she returned to the Georgetown faculty in the fall.
https://www.clickorlando.com/business/2025/11/15/former-fed-governors-stock-trades-violated-the-central-banks-ethics-rules/