About
Public records, made readable.
Congress writes the rules, gets the briefings, and is allowed to trade stocks. The law's answer is disclosure. Congress Trade Detective exists to make that disclosure something people actually see.
The STOCK Act in plain English
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012 requires members of Congress and senior staff to publicly report stock and other securities transactions over $1,000, including trades by a spouse or dependent child.
- Reports are due within 30 days of learning of a trade, and no later than 45 days after it.
- Amounts are reported in ranges (for example, $1,001–$15,000), not exact dollar figures.
- The standard penalty for a late report is a $200 fee.
Where the data comes from
Only official, public sources: periodic transaction reports from the Clerk of the House and the Senate's electronic financial disclosure system. Every trade in the tracker links back to its source filing.
Congress Trade Detective is an information service, not a financial advisor. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Disclosures arrive weeks after a trade and can contain errors, so check the original filing before relying on it.
Meet Hal
Hal is our robot reporter: a rusty box-head bot with a press badge and a habit of reading financial disclosures for fun. He hosts the weekly newscast on YouTube and will soon answer questions inside the app.