One public database now tracks 189,595 disclosed stock trades from 343 members of Congress, more than 8 billion dollars in disclosed volume. A cluster of tracker apps, some free, some charging actual money every month, exists purely to surface those filings the moment they post.
The claim that started it all comes from a peer-reviewed paper: senators' stock purchases outperformed the market by roughly 12.3 percentage points a year, according to a 2004 study in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
A second study, published in 2013 in the Journal of Politics, reinterpreted that same era and independently analyzed a fresh one. Its finding: the average member's own portfolio underperformed the market by 2 to 3 percent a year.
A third study, covering 2012 through March 2020, the years after Congress made itself file disclosures fast, found close to no edge at all.
This report builds the full picture from there. What the STOCK Act actually requires. All three studies, side by side, in the years they cover, plus the documented delay between when a trade happens and when it's disclosed. And an original simulation showing that by the time a typical filing goes public, the median hypothetical signal has already lost roughly 92 percent of its starting value.
All of it below, with the exact page number next to each one.
A Trading Habits Report
The Congressional Trading Report
What the STOCK Act requires and what it doesn't, the studies that started the legend and the one that fought back, the average filing lag behind every disclosure, and an original simulation of what that lag costs a reader trying to follow along.
- Length 20 pages, with 11 original charts and a 20,000-trade simulation
- Author TradingHabits.com
- Format PDF, delivered as an instant download right after checkout
- Covers STOCK Act mechanics, three academic studies, disclosure-lag data, and an original signal-decay simulation
No stock is picked, ranked, or listed anywhere in this report, and no member of Congress, tracker, or platform is recommended. Studies and public filings are named only where they are the documented source of the data being described.
What's Inside
20 Things This Report Actually Says
- 01What the STOCK Act actually requires: who has to file, what counts, and the actual deadline.Page 4
- 02The 200-dollar late fee, and why watchdog groups say enforcement beyond it is close to nonexistent.Page 4
- 03How a public database with 189,595 filings and 8 billion dollars in disclosed volume turned into an entire product category.Page 5
- 04Why this spread so fast, and the headline-drives-traffic loop that keeps it growing.Page 6
- 05The 2004 Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis study: senators' purchases beat the market by 12.3 points a year.Page 7
- 06The House follow-up study and its smaller, still notable, roughly 6-point edge.Page 7
- 07The 2013 “Capitol Losses” study that reinterpreted the same era and found the opposite.Page 8
- 08Why the average member underperformed the market by 2 to 3 percent a year in that study's own data.Page 8
- 09The 2020 NBER study covering 2012 through March 2020: after the law changed, the edge is gone.Page 9
- 10Why committee assignments showed no measurable stock-picking advantage in that same study.Page 9
- 11How to read three studies from three different eras without treating them as one contradiction.Page 10
- 12Why a single tracked household's best year and a population average are two different claims.Page 11
- 13The documented filing-lag numbers: a 45-day legal deadline, a 26-day median, a 52.5-day average.Page 12
- 14A fully hypothetical, worked-by-hand example of a signal decaying before a reader ever sees the filing.Page 13
- 15An original simulation, 20,000 trades deep, built from scratch in Python and NumPy for this report.Page 14
- 16The full result: a median of roughly 8 percent of the original signal surviving by the time a reader can act.Page 15
- 17The two 2026 bills, one passed by the House 232-198, one advanced by a Senate committee, and where each one stands.Page 16
- 18How the tracker and copy-app business works, and what a pending ban would do to it.Page 17
- 19Seven terms defined, from Periodic Transaction Report to abnormal return, on one page.Page 3
- 20Six questions to run before trusting any headline number about congressional trading.Page 18
HABITS
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Behind The Report
Three Studies, Three Eras, Three Different Answers
Same information, different clocks. One side moves first.
The Legend, Then The Pushback
A 2004 study in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis found senators' stock purchases beat the market by roughly 12.3 percentage points a year across 1993 through 1998. A 2013 study in the Journal of Politics reinterpreted that same era and separately analyzed 2004 through 2008, finding the average member's own portfolio underperformed the market by 2 to 3 percent a year instead.
Neither paper is wrong about its own period. They measured different years using different methods, and the popular version of this story usually only remembers the first one.
What Happened After The Law Changed
A 2020 National Bureau of Economic Research paper asked the more current question directly: after the STOCK Act made fast public disclosure mandatory in 2012, did the edge survive? Examining Senate trades from 2012 through March 2020, the researchers found close to none, and no sign that committee assignments gave anyone a measurable advantage.
No stock is named, ranked, or recommended anywhere on this page or in the report. The full disclosure-lag data behind that finding, and an original simulation built to show exactly where a signal's value goes, are both in the report itself.
Three Studies, Three Eras, In One Chart
A simplified rendering of the three-study comparison discussed on page 10 of the report. Background only. The report itself covers each study's exact methodology and full figures.
Try It: What A Filing Delay Does To A Signal's Value
Default values match the report's own simulation on page 14: an illustrative signal value, and a half-life chosen for this report, not any study's disclosed methodology. Move the sliders. The math is the same math the report runs 20,000 times.
Background only. Nothing on this page or in this report is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, or to follow, use, avoid, sign up for, or fund an account on any specific tracker, app, fund, or platform.
Common Questions
Did members of Congress beat the market by 12% a year?
One 2004 study, covering 1993 through 1998, found that. A 2013 study reinterpreting overlapping and later years found the average member's own portfolio underperformed the market by 2 to 3 percent a year instead. Different periods, different methods, different findings.
What happened after the STOCK Act required faster disclosure in 2012?
A 2020 National Bureau of Economic Research paper examined Senate trades from 2012 through March 2020 and found close to no edge left, and no sign committee assignments gave anyone a measurable advantage.
Does the report recommend following any specific tracker or trade?
No. Nothing on the page or in the report recommends buying, selling, or holding any security, or using any specific tracker, app, fund, or platform.
Sources & Further Reading
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Ziobrowski, A. J., Cheng, P., Boyd, J. W. & Ziobrowski, B. J. (2004). “Abnormal Returns from the Common Stock Investments of the U.S. Senate.” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 39(4), 661-676.
The original “senators beat the market” finding, covering 1993 through 1998.
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Eggers, A. & Hainmueller, J. (2013). “Capitol Losses: The Mediocre Performance of Congressional Stock Portfolios.” The Journal of Politics, 75(2).
Reinterpreted that same era and separately analyzed 2004 through 2008, finding underperformance instead.
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Belmont, W., Sacerdote, B., Sehgal, R. & Van Hoek, I. (2020). “Relief Rally: Senators As Feckless As the Rest of Us at Stock Picking.” NBER Working Paper No. 26975.
Examined Senate trades from 2012 through March 2020, after the STOCK Act made fast disclosure mandatory, and found close to no edge.