What Do Stocks Do Before Congress Discloses a Trade?
On average, slightly less than the market. As of October 30, 2026, the 13,056 stock purchases by 106 members of Congress that we could price moved +1.69% between the trade date and the disclosure date, while the S&P 500 moved +2.31% over the same windows. 45.4% of those purchases beat the index over the same stretch.
Key numbers
- As of October 30, 2026, the 13,056 priced stock purchases disclosed by 106 members of Congress (trade dates November 29, 2022 to October 15, 2026) moved +1.69% on average between trade and disclosure, against +2.31% for the S&P 500 over the same windows.
- The median congressional stock purchase moved +0.73% before it was disclosed (13,056 priced purchases, as of October 30, 2026).
- 45.4% of priced congressional stock purchases beat the S&P 500 between trade and disclosure, and 55.1% rose at all (as of October 30, 2026).
- Purchases disclosed more than 90 days after the trade (586 priced, as of October 30, 2026) moved +21.59% on average before disclosure, against +24.93% for the S&P 500 over the same windows.
- Of the 71 members of Congress with 5 or more priced stock purchases, 36 trailed the S&P 500 on average between trade and disclosure; the median member’s difference was -0.10 points (as of October 30, 2026).
- Rohit Khanna accounts for 7,837 of the 13,056 priced congressional stock purchases (60.0%); the other 5,219 moved +3.21% on average between trade and disclosure, against +3.81% for the S&P 500 (as of October 30, 2026).
- Of the 12 sectors with 30 or more priced congressional purchases, only technology and energy moved more than the S&P 500 on average between trade and disclosure (as of October 30, 2026).
Figures recompute from the live dataset. How trades are parsed, dated and priced: methodology.
The STOCK Act gives members of Congress up to 45 days to report a trade, so a purchase can sit for days or weeks before it appears on the public record. This page measures what the stock did in that gap.
For every disclosed purchase we could price, we took the stock’s move from the trade date to the disclosure date, and the S&P 500 over the exact same window for comparison.
The average purchase trailed the index over this gap. 55.1% of priced purchases rose at all before disclosure, and 45.4% beat the index over their window.
Reports filed later cover longer windows, so the next table splits the purchases by how long the report took.
Do later reports show bigger moves?
| Disclosure lag | Purchases | Avg move before disclosure | vs SPY |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-15 days | 3,342 | +0.44% | -0.09% |
| 16-30 days | 5,981 | +0.81% | -0.78% |
| 31-45 days (deadline) | 3,036 | +0.86% | -0.39% |
| 46-90 days · past deadline | 109 | +4.11% | -0.49% |
| Over 90 days · past deadline | 586 | +21.59% | -3.34% |
Purchases reported within the 45-day window moved +0.44% to +0.86% on average, depending on how long the report took. Purchases reported more than 90 days after the trade moved +21.59%, while the S&P 500 moved +24.93% over the same windows. Those windows are longer, so the index moved more over them too. A bigger move on a later report reflects more time passing; it does not by itself say the purchases did better than the market.
Which sectors moved before disclosure?
Split by sector, the headline holds. Of the 12 sectors with 30 or more priced purchases, only technology and energy purchases moved more than the S&P 500 on average over the same windows; the other 10 trailed it. Technology is the largest sample, 2,471 priced purchases. At the bottom, materials purchases trailed the index by 2.61 points on average.
| Sector | Purchases | Avg move | S&P 500 | Difference | Beat S&P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technology | 2,471 | +4.34% | +2.65% | +1.69 pts | 50% |
| Energy | 144 | +3.44% | +2.91% | +0.53 pts | 46% |
| Financials | 1,934 | +2.02% | +2.18% | -0.16 pts | 50% |
| Industrials | 1,182 | +1.33% | +1.95% | -0.61 pts | 47% |
| Consumer Discretionary | 1,330 | +1.17% | +2.12% | -0.95 pts | 45% |
| Communications | 370 | +0.74% | +1.90% | -1.16 pts | 45% |
| Utilities | 245 | +0.54% | +1.81% | -1.27 pts | 46% |
| Transportation | 307 | +0.38% | +1.82% | -1.44 pts | 39% |
| Healthcare | 1,526 | +0.87% | +2.40% | -1.53 pts | 42% |
| Defense and Aerospace | 80 | +0.71% | +2.87% | -2.16 pts | 43% |
| Consumer Staples | 443 | +0.04% | +2.22% | -2.18 pts | 33% |
| Materials | 649 | -0.22% | +2.39% | -2.61 pts | 39% |
Sectors come from each company’s SEC industry code (SIC), not GICS, and cover the purchases whose ticker has one. Each window is compared with the S&P 500 over the same dates; a sector with a few heavy filers can lean on them. Every sector page carries the trades behind its row.
The largest single moves on record
These are the largest moves between trade and disclosure in our data, measured in percent. The table shows the stock alone, with no index comparison, and the longest windows have the most time to move.
| Member | Ticker | Traded | Disclosed | Lag | Move before disclosure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debbie Wasserman Schultz House · FL | NGD | Feb 28, 24 | Jul 1, 25 | 489d | +313.45% |
| Byron Donalds House · FL · Spouse | NVDA | Oct 19, 23 | Nov 8, 24 | 386d | +250.79% |
| Byron Donalds House · FL · Self | NVDA | Oct 19, 23 | Nov 8, 24 | 386d | +250.79% |
| Byron Donalds House · FL · Spouse | NVDA | Jul 5, 23 | Nov 8, 24 | 492d | +249.04% |
| Byron Donalds House · FL · Self | NVDA | Jul 5, 23 | Nov 8, 24 | 492d | +249.04% |
| Thomas H Tuberville Senate · AL · Joint | INTC | May 8, 24 | Aug 5, 26 | 819d | +239.01% |
| Thomas H Tuberville Senate · AL · Joint | INTC | May 9, 24 | Aug 5, 26 | 818d | +237.99% |
| Thomas H Tuberville Senate · AL · Joint | INTC | May 7, 24 | Aug 5, 26 | 820d | +231.45% |
| Shri Thanedar House · MI | MSTR | Jul 1, 24 | Aug 11, 25 | 406d | +193.24% |
| Alan Armstrong Senate · OK · Self | MU | Mar 27, 26 | Jul 21, 26 | 116d | +171.92% |
9 of these 10 windows run longer than a year. Adjacent rows that look identical are separate line items from the same filing (a member’s own account and a spouse’s, for example). The table says what each stock did over the window, not why a member bought it or when they chose to report. For sales, in Does Congress Sell Before the Drop? the stocks members sold fell 10% or more over the following 30 days about as often as the stocks they bought did.
Frequently asked
Do stocks go up before members of Congress disclose a purchase?
On average, a little. As of October 30, 2026, 13,056 priced purchases moved +1.69% between trade and disclosure, against +2.31% for the S&P 500 over the same windows. 55.1% rose at all and 45.4% beat the index.
Do purchases reported late show bigger moves?
Yes, because the windows are longer, and the S&P 500 moves more over them too. Purchases reported within 45 days moved +0.44% to +0.86% on average, depending on how long the report took. The 586 reported more than 90 days after the trade moved +21.59%, against +24.93% for the S&P 500 over the same windows (as of October 30, 2026).
Could anyone have traded on this move?
No. The move ends on the disclosure date, so it happened before the report was public. It describes what prices did. It is not a return anyone earned by following disclosures.
For each disclosed purchase with a listed ticker, we take the nearest trading-day close on or after the trade date and the nearest close on or after the disclosure date, and compute the percent change between them, with SPY over the identical window for comparison. Windows that end after our latest price bar are excluded, as are trades outside our price coverage (bonds, foreign listings, and some small caps are not covered; 13,056 of the 17,470 purchases disclosed through October 30, 2026, 75%, are priced). The sample runs from trade dates November 29, 2022 to October 15, 2026, a broadly rising market, which is part of why the index is hard to beat over these windows. Two more notes: one filer (Rohit Khanna, whose family-trust filings itemize many small line items) accounts for 60.0% of priced purchases, and without those the rest still trail the index on average (+3.21% against +3.81%); counting each member with 5 or more priced purchases once, 36 of 71 trailed it (about half). This is a description of what prices did, not a strategy: nobody trading on public disclosures could have captured this window, and our own backtests deliberately enter only after disclosure.
Coldpine’s compliance board tracks who reports late, and now what each stock did in the meantime, on every disclosed trade.
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Coldpine is a publisher of intelligence on public Congressional disclosures. The pre-disclosure move is a descriptive, point-in-time measure of price changes during the disclosure window. It is not a return anyone earned or could have earned by following disclosures, not evidence of trading on nonpublic information, and not investment advice. Amounts in filings are disclosed as ranges; price coverage is limited to listed tickers with available history.