Regulators of Facebook, Google and Amazon also invest in the companies’ stocks
> An investment of $15,000 or less in an individual stock, or of $50,000 or less in an industry-specific mutual fund, isn’t deemed a conflict of interest under federal regulations.<p>> An FTC spokesman said the agency officials had followed the law.<p>While I don't really want to see regulators owning any amount of individual stocks in companies they're directly regulating, the $15,000 individual stock limit limits the impact quite a bit. Even if someone did own $15,000 of an individual stock, the personal financial gain/loss of even major regulatory actions isn't a huge amount.<p>Also keep in mind that you can't buy basically any large cap mutual fund without owning significant amounts of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and other large companies.