Congress Stock Trades: How to Track Them and Whether Copying Works

Updated Oct 28, 2026 · 3 min read

Since the STOCK Act of 2012, members of Congress must publicly disclose stock trades made by themselves, their spouses and dependent children. Those disclosures have become one of the most-watched datasets in retail investing, largely thanks to Nancy Pelosi's trades.

How the disclosures work

• Trades over $1,000 must be reported in a Periodic Transaction Report (PTR).
• The deadline is 30 days after the member learns of the trade and no more than 45 days after it happened.
• Amounts are reported in ranges (for example $15,001 to $50,000), not exact figures.
• House reports are published by the Clerk of the House; Senate reports by the Senate's eFD system.

Why it matters that they're late

By the time a trade is public it is often weeks old. Any edge from the original timing may already be in the price. That's why our pages show how many days each disclosure took, and why we measure performance from the day a filing became public, the first day you could actually have copied it.

What the research says

Early studies of the 1990s found senators beat the market. More recent work is far less flattering: a 2025 NBER paper on 2012–2023 trades found members' portfolios match or underperform market benchmarks on average, with timing that tracks retail sentiment. ETFs that copy Congress (such as NANC and KRUZ) have mostly moved with their big-tech or energy exposure.

What our data shows

Our Congress purchases backtest buys the stocks most bought by House members in the previous 45 days and compares the result with the S&P 500. Each member's page also shows how their disclosed stock purchases did in the 90 days after filing.

Where to start

Browse the Congress trades tracker for the latest disclosures and most-bought stocks, or look up a member such as Nancy Pelosi.