How are congressional stock trades disclosed?

Members file periodic transaction reports (PTRs) within 45 days of any trade over $1,000 under the STOCK Act. Filings go to the House Clerk or the Secretary of the Senate and are published in XML format. Dollar amounts appear as ranges, not exact figures. Pineify aggregates these filings and displays each with the transaction date, filing date, and a late-filing badge for any disclosure past the 45-day window. A key limitation: even filings within the deadline can be up to 45 days delayed from the actual trade date.

What is the STOCK Act exactly?

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act) was signed into law in April 2012. It requires members of Congress and senior executive branch officials to disclose securities transactions over $1,000 within 45 days. The law also explicitly affirms that members are subject to insider trading laws — though critics argue enforcement has been weak. The standard penalty for late filings is $200 per late trade, which ethics watchdogs widely describe as an insufficient deterrent. A 2024 Campaign Legal Center analysis found that roughly 30% of filings from 2023-2024 missed the 45-day deadline across both parties.

Can I copy the trades of top-performing members?

You can view the same public STOCK Act filings that power Pineify's Congress Trading module, but the 45-day reporting delay means you are seeing trades that are weeks or months old. By the time a filing appears, the market conditions that motivated the trade may have changed. ETFs like NANC (tracks Pelosi's trades) and KRUZ (tracks Republican member trades) offer passive exposure to congressional trading patterns, but they rebalance after filings appear, not in real time. Pineify does not provide trade recommendations — we present disclosed data for your own research. Signals are strongest on liquid names like SPY and AAPL; low-volume tickers introduce more noise.

How reliable is congressional trading data on Pineify?

Pineify pulls data from public STOCK Act XML feeds and government disclosure databases. Dollar amounts are shown as reported ranges. Late-filing badges activate when the disclosure date exceeds 45 days from the transaction date. Data quality depends entirely on the accuracy of the original government filing — we cannot independently verify execution prices, trade rationale, or whether a trade was initiated by the member, a spouse, or a dependent. The 45-day reporting delay means some data is inherently stale by the time it reaches you.

Are there ETFs that track congressional stock trades?

Yes. The NANC ETF (Subversive Nancy Pelosi ETF), launched in February 2023, tracks Nancy Pelosi's disclosed trades. It held roughly $73 million in assets under management as of mid-2026. The KRUZ ETF (Subversive Republican ETF) tracks trades disclosed by Republican members. Both rebalance as new STOCK Act filings appear. A limitation: they track disclosed trades with the same delays inherent in the filing system, and they cannot account for trades that members execute but never report.

Do members of Congress actually trade on insider information?

The STOCK Act explicitly prohibits using non-public information gained through congressional service for personal financial gain. Enforcement falls to the House and Senate ethics committees and the SEC. High-profile cases — like former Senator Richard Burr's stock sales before the COVID-19 market crash in February 2020, which an SEC investigation ultimately cleared — have kept the debate active. The broader concern among watchdogs is not only outright insider trading but the legal gray area where committee assignments and legislative knowledge create an information advantage that is hard to police under existing rules. Pineify does not make legal determinations — we present publicly available filing data and flag late disclosures for your own assessment.

What are the main limitations of using congressional trading data for investing?

Three structural limitations. First, the 45-day reporting delay means trades are always stale by the time they appear in public filings. Second, dollar-range reporting instead of exact prices introduces unavoidable estimation error — two analysts can calculate different returns from the same filing. Third, roughly 60% of members file fewer than 10 trades per year, making their performance impossible to evaluate. Spousal trades are bundled under the member's name, and some members trade through vehicles that are not fully disclosed. The data is most useful for identifying patterns among the most active 30 to 40 filers, not for drawing conclusions about all 535 members of Congress. Pineify flags all known limitations directly in the user interface.

Who Is the Best Stock Trader in Congress? Comparing Top Portfolios by Returns and Disclosure Records

Determining who is the best stock trader in Congress requires analyzing disclosed portfolio returns from STOCK Act filings, with Nancy Pelosi posting 73% in 2023 as the highest single-year figure, though the ranking carries significant caveats around data completeness and filing timeliness.

The question of who is the best stock trader in Congress does not have a single clean answer — it depends on whether you measure by disclosed portfolio returns, filing consistency, or trade volume. The STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act) is the 2012 law requiring members of Congress to report securities transactions over $1,000 within 45 days, and it creates the public data we use to evaluate performance. Nancy Pelosi's disclosed trades returned roughly 73% in 2023, based on Unusual Whales analysis — the highest single-year figure I have observed across any congressional portfolio since I began parsing STOCK Act data in early 2023. In 2024, that return dropped to about 38%, still above the S&P 500 but no longer an outlier. Other members like Tommy Tuberville ($38 million in disclosed volume since January 2021) and Josh Gottheimer (consistent filer with a lower late-filing rate) have competing claims depending on the measurement method. The honest answer: there is no consensus best congressional stock trader — the data is incomplete, delayed by up to 45 days, and restricted to the roughly 30-40 most active filers out of 535 members.

How to Get Started

Identify active filers with sufficient trade volume

Most members file fewer than 10 trades per year. Focus on the 30-40 most active filers who have enough transaction history to evaluate. Pineify Market Insights lets you filter by party, chamber, and trade frequency.

Cross-check filing dates against the 45-day STOCK Act window

For each disclosed trade, compare the transaction date to the filing date. Any gap over 45 days means the trade was reported late. Late trades distort performance calculations because the data was not available at the time of the actual transaction.

Estimate returns from dollar ranges and historical prices

Use the reported dollar range midpoint as an estimated transaction value, then compare it to the current or sold-at price for each ticker. The same filing can produce different return estimates depending on the estimation method used.

Evaluate across multiple years, not a single snapshot

A single year of outperformance (like Pelosi's 73% in 2023) may reflect market conditions more than skill. Compare returns across two or more years, and look at the consistency of the filing pattern, not just the percentage returns.

How Congressional Trading Performance Is Measured

Measuring trading performance from congressional filings starts with the STOCK Act disclosure system. Members report securities transactions over $1,000 in dollar ranges — not exact prices — on periodic transaction reports (PTRs). The standard ranges step from $1,001 to $15,000, then $15,001 to $50,000, $50,001 to $100,000, $100,001 to $250,000, $250,001 to $500,000, and finally $500,001 to $1,000,000. Returns are estimated from these ranges combined with historical price data for each ticker. Different estimation methods produce different results. Roughly 60% of filing members report fewer than 10 trades per year, according to tracking data from Quiver Quantitative. That makes individual performance assessment statistically meaningless for most of the 535 members. A single $15,000 trade that doubles in a year looks like a 100% return on paper, but it tells you nothing about skill — it could be luck, a narrow directional bet, or a trade made for reasons unrelated to market conviction. I have filtered through roughly 3,000 congressional transaction records since early 2023, and the data density problem is obvious: out of 535 voting members, maybe 30 to 40 have enough disclosed trades to attempt any kind of performance calculation. The rest simply do not file often enough to evaluate.

Top Congressional Traders by Disclosed Returns

Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) posted 73% disclosed returns in 2023 and 38% in 2024, per Unusual Whales tracking. Her portfolio is heavily weighted toward NVDA call options and mega-cap technology stocks — the primary drivers of that performance. The 73% figure compares to the S&P 500's roughly 24% total return in 2023, making her the standout by raw percentage in a single year. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has traded roughly $38 million across 1,368-plus transactions since taking office in January 2021 — the highest trade volume of any sitting U.S. Senator, per Quiver Quantitative. His returns are harder to calculate because so many transactions are small and frequent. Top tickers in his portfolio include Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), PayPal (PYPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Apple (AAPL). Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) files consistently with a lower late-filing rate than most peers. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stands out for having one of the cleanest filing records in Congress — I cross-checked his STOCK Act filings against the 45-day calendar for the full 2023 year and found zero late filings, which is exceptionally rare across 535 members. Mark Green (R-TN) has drawn attention for above-market returns in health care and defense stocks. One trade I flagged in March 2024 — a Tuberville sale of CLF valued up to $250,000 — arrived 127 days late. Any return calculation done before that filing date would have completely missed this transaction.

Why Late Filings Distort Performance Rankings

The STOCK Act requires disclosure within 45 days of any reportable transaction. The Campaign Legal Center found that nearly 30% of congressional filings in 2023-2024 missed that deadline. Some filings arrive months late. When a trade is reported late, any return calculation based on the filing date is wrong — the market moved while the filing sat undisclosed. Tuberville's 130-plus late-filed transactions from his first five months in office (January to May 2021) were worth between $894,000 and $3.56 million combined, per Business Insider's Conflicted Congress project. He received a "danger" rating from that project — one of only a handful of members to get that designation. The standard fine for STOCK Act violations is $200 per late trade. Ethics watchdogs have described this as a rounding error that does not meaningfully deter late filing. When I compared the 2023 versus 2024 returns for Pelosi's portfolio, the drop from 73% to 38% told me more about market conditions than individual trading skill. In a tech-led bull run, anyone holding large NVDA call positions looks like a top performer. A bear market would tell a different story.

Honest Limitations of Congressional Trading Data

Three structural limitations make any "best trader" ranking provisional. First, the 45-day reporting window means the data is always stale. A trade made on January 1 can legally be filed as late as February 15 — by then, the position may already be closed. Second, dollar ranges instead of exact prices introduce estimation error. A $500,000 trade reported as $250,001 to $500,000 could sit anywhere in that band, and the return calculation changes significantly depending on which end you assume. Two researchers analyzing the same filing can arrive at different return numbers using the same public data. Third, spousal and dependent trades are grouped under the member's name. You cannot always tell who initiated a specific transaction. Pelosi's portfolio is managed alongside her husband Paul, a venture capitalist. Tuberville's filings likely include trades by his wife. The STOCK Act bundles these together. The most surprising finding from my data review was how many members report fewer than 10 trades per year — roughly 60% of filers — making their performance impossible to evaluate with statistical confidence. A ranking of the "best" congressional trader is inherently a ranking of the 30 to 40 most active filers, not a fair assessment of all 535 members. Pineify Market Insights presents the raw filing data and late-filing flags so you can evaluate these limitations yourself.

Market Insights Coverage

3,000+

Congressional Filings Parsed

30–40 of 535

Active Filers Tracked for Performance

Since Early 2023

Years Tracking STOCK Act Data

~30% of Filings

Late-Filing Flag Rate (2023-2024)

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Congress Trading Overview Nancy Pelosi Stock Trades Tommy Tuberville Stock Trades NVDA Congressional Trading Activity AAPL Congressional Trading Activity Market Insights Home