Tracking Trading in Congress.
- 55,818
- disclosed trades, all years on file
- $3.8B
- estimated volume (range midpoints)
- 14%
- filed late, share of all years’ trades
- 293
- of 539 members disclosed no trades
The STOCK Act gives a member 45 days to disclose a trade. The share is every trade on file disclosed after that deadline, across all members and years; each member’s page gives their own count.
Members who disclosed no trades
House
255of 439 members, 58%
Democrats135 of 21762%
Republicans119 of 22154%
Independents1 of 1100%
Senate
38of 100 members, 38%
Democrats21 of 4547%
Republicans16 of 5330%
Independents1 of 250%
Every sitting member is counted, delegates included: each bar is one party in one chamber, filled for its members who disclosed no trades. A member counts as disclosing no trades when no trade appears in the periodic transaction reports read here, every year on file. A member who files on paper may have trades not yet read.
Most active traders
Members ranked by the number of trades their periodic transaction reports disclose, or by the estimated dollar volume of those trades, every year on file, largest first; ties A to Z. Dollar figures use range midpoints and any exact figures the filer provided; they remain estimates because most amounts are filed as ranges. A member who files on paper may have trades not yet read here.
The members who trade and are running this cycle are ranked in Elections, next to the money behind each race.
Trades in sectors members oversee
44 members traded a single stock in a sector a committee they sat on oversees.
A member’s own trades in a single stock whose sector is overseen by a committee they sat on at the time. Funds and family-member trades are excluded, and each trade is matched to the committees the member sat on that day, from dated rosters that begin in January 2017. This is where duty and holding overlap. It is not a finding that either was traded on. A symbol marked with an asterisk was matched from the company name on the filing. The filer did not write a symbol down.
The flag tests only the trades that belong to the member, not a spouse or a child. The Senate feed marks the member’s own trades with an owner code. The House Clerk feed does not, so a House trade’s ownership is inferred from the filing and shown with an “owner inferred” note; any House member who files a family trade elsewhere is set aside from that inference. Custodial and joint accounts are never read as the member’s own.
Late filers
The STOCK Act gives a member 45 days to disclose a trade. These are the members with at least one trade disclosed after that deadline and at least five trades on file, so a share is not read off one or two trades. Each row gives the years its trades cover. Share and count tell different stories: a member with few trades can file most of them late, and a heavy trader can file many late at a low share.
81%
Lowest support in either party or among independents
A ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks. Members may still legally trade today.
Where each member standsProhibit Members of Congress (in the House and Senate) and the family that lives with them, from trading stocks in individual companies. They would still be allowed to buy or sell shares of mutual funds or index funds that include stocks in numerous companies. In conclusion, do you favor or oppose this proposal?
U. of Maryland PPC, May 2023