As Recession Fears Grow, This Congressman Buys 2 Consumer Defensive Stocks Paying Consistent Dividends

Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 11 terms, and has made more than 80 trades in the past three years, per Capitol Trades. Sessions failed to properly disclose up to $105,000 in stock trades in 2021, per Market Insider, violating a federal conflicts-of-interest and transparency law by not correctly reporting seven of his own stock trades.

Meanwhile, Sessions supports more transparency and integrity in the reporting standards, rather than members of Congress being banned from stock trading altogether. Capitol Trades revealed that the lawmaker's top three traded stocks tend to be Microsoft Corp MSFT, Amazon.com Inc AMZN, and NVIDIA Corporation NVDA.

Sessions also recently purchased shares of two consumer defensive dividend stocks.

Also Read: House Energy Committee Member Buys 2 Paying Dividend Stocks, Sells ConocoPhillips Shares

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ is offering a dividend yield of 6.89% or $2.61 per share annually, using quarterly payments, with a superb track record of increasing its dividends for 18 consecutive years.

• Verizon is the largest U.S. wireless carrier, where it generates nearly 80% of its operating income.
• The company reported a net loss of 189,000 wireless retail postpaid phone subscribers in the third quarter of 2022.
• Sessions purchased a range of between $1,000 to $15,000 in shares of Verizon for $38.89 per share on Sept. 27, filed under his spouse, per Capitol Trades.

McDonald's Corporation MCD is offering a dividend yield of 2.18% or $6.08 per share annually, through quarterly payments, with a stellar track record of increasing its dividends for 20 consecutive years.

• McDonald’s is the largest restaurant owner-operator in the world.
• The company had 2021 system sales of $112 billion across nearly 40,000 stores and more than 100 markets.
• Sessions purchased a range of between $1,000 to $15,000 in shares of McDonald’s for $251.08 per share on Sept. 21, filed under his spouse, reported by Capitol Trades.

Sessions represents Texas' 17th Congressional District. He sits on the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

As of Sept. 29, 72 congress members violated the federal STOCK Act, which was formed to prevent insider trading. Although lawmakers like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Steve Daines want to go a step further and ban members of Congress and their spouses from owning or trading individual stocks.

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