U.S. Congress stock trades
Senators and Representatives disclose their trades late and on scattered government sites, and almost nobody reads them. Here they are, in one place.
What is the Congress Tracker?
It collects the stock trades disclosed by U.S. Senators and Representatives under the STOCK Act of 2012. The law requires every member of Congress to report securities purchases and sales within 45 days. The filings are public record, but they are scattered across government databases and rarely reach the people who trade.
Why it matters
Members of Congress sit on committees that oversee defense, technology, healthcare, energy and financial regulation — sectors where a policy decision moves markets. A widely cited study (Ziobrowski et al., 2004) found that Senate portfolios beat the market. Later work is less flattering: Eggers and Hainmueller (2013) found that, over 2004–2008, congressional portfolios did not beat the market.
What is not in dispute is the access: legislators see regulatory proposals, closed briefings and budget decisions before the public does. With a lag of up to 45 days these are not real-time signals, but clusters of buying in one sector, or an influential legislator building a position, can be useful context for your own research.
How CHESKO 2.0 uses this data
CHESKO 2.0, the Ballad Markets AI desk, reads these disclosures as one more layer of context, alongside insider purchases (Form 4) and technical and fundamental analysis. No single signal is traded in isolation, and the founder’s human judgement reviews the market read. The desk publishes its results as simulated results.
Data sources and methodology
- Source:
- Financial Modeling Prep (FMP), which compiles the official filings of the Senate (eFD) and the House of Representatives (House Clerk). Refreshed hourly.
- Coverage:
- U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Includes buys, sells and exchange-traded funds.
- Lag:
- The law allows up to 45 days to disclose; most members file within 30. That is why both dates are shown: when the trade happened and when it was disclosed.
- Repeated lines:
- If a filing contains two identical lines, they are shown once with a count (×2): they can be separate lots, so they are not deleted.
- Disclaimer:
- Informational tool. Congressional trades do not predict the market and none of this is financial advice.
Context, not signals
A congressional disclosure arrives weeks after the trade: it helps you understand, not copy. To see how the desk combines this with everything else, start with the guide.
Data from public U.S. congressional disclosures. Informational only · not financial advice.