Do Members of Congress Trade Options?

Every member with an options trade

An option is a contract: a call gives the right to buy shares at a set price before a set date, and a put gives the right to sell. Members of Congress report options trades on the same periodic transaction reports as stocks, within 45 days, and House reports mark them with the asset code [OP]. The filing usually gives the number of contracts, the strike price and the expiry. Trades in a spouse's or dependent child's account go on the member's report and count for the member. The table lists every member with an options trade on the reports Coldpine has on file.

How much rests on one member

Rohit Khanna reported 312 of the 434 options trades, 71.9%: 138 calls and 168 puts, 163 of them on an index. Set that household aside and 9 members reported 122 options trades, 113 calls and 9 puts. 6 of the 10 members reported calls and no puts. On 6 filing lines the type of contract is not legible, so the call and put counts add up to slightly less than the total.

Calls, puts, and what a sale means

For an option, "bought" and "sold" on a report do not say which way the member expected the price to go. Members reported 251 options purchases and 183 sales. A sale can close a contract bought earlier, or open a new one: several filings describe selling covered calls, which collects a premium against shares already held and caps their upside. A put bought on an index can be a hedge on a portfolio of stocks. 11 of the purchases are shares bought by exercising calls, which the filings report as stock purchases with the option described in the notes.

Index options and single stocks

182 of the 434 options trades were on a broad stock index or index fund (S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 or Russell 2000 contracts and funds), and 252 were on single stocks or did not name an index. Among single stocks, the most-traded underlying was MSFT, with 47 options trades from 3 members, followed by AAPL (14), NVDA (12), BRK.B (8) and WMT (7). Which stocks Congress trades most across every asset is in the most-traded stocks in Congress.

Whose account

261 of the options trades were listed in a spouse's account, 92 in a dependent child's, 45 jointly held and 7 as the member's own; the rest did not state an owner. Nancy Pelosi's options trades, for example, are all listed under her spouse (see Nancy Pelosi's stock trades). How much of Congress's trading is spouses' generally is in the spouse and child trades article.

By party and over the last year

Democrats reported 386 of the 434 options trades (4 members) and Republicans 48 (6 members). Set Rohit Khanna aside and the count is 74 Democratic to 48 Republican. On reports filed in the last 365 days, 6 members disclosed 93 options trades. Most reported amounts are small: 295 of the 434 fall in the lowest $1,001 to $15,000 range, and 33 in a range above $1 million.

What this does and does not show

These are reported transactions, not positions. An option that expires worthless, or a contract held at the start of a term, may never appear as a trade. Amounts are reported in ranges of the contract's value, not the value of the shares it controls, so a small range can stand for a larger exposure. Coldpine's market comparisons in does Congress beat the market use the price of the underlying stock and do not capture an option's leverage. Reporting a trade is what the law requires, and none of these counts is evidence of wrongdoing by any member.

Methodology and honest caveats

The figures cover periodic transaction reports filed from January 1, 2023 through October 29, 2026. Coldpine's House record goes back to January 2023, but its Senate record begins with reports filed in January 2026, so a senator's earlier options trades are not counted. A transaction counts when the asset is tagged [OP], is written as a put or call contract, or its description mentions options, and the filing identifies a put, a call or a contract line. Employee stock options received as pay, and exchange-traded funds that sell options for income, are left out: the first are compensation and the second are fund shares. Shares bought by exercising a call are counted, since the filing reports the exercise. Index means an S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 or Dow contract or fund. Each member is counted once, and a member who appears under two spellings is counted once. How we parse filings is set out in our methodology. Figures are computed live and update as new filings arrive, so they may differ from the ones quoted the day this was published.