Methodology

1. 1

   Congressional amounts are ranges

   The STOCK Act requires members to disclose only an amount bracket such as "$1,001 – $15,000". Every congressional trade and every congressional total on this site is therefore a range. Quote the range (amount.disclosed, or min_usd to max_usd). Never state that a member traded a single dollar amount unless amount.exact_usd is set.

2. 2

   Midpoints are estimates

   Where the site shows one number for congressional volume (the API's midpoint_estimate_usd, the dashboard's "est." figures, rankings by volume) it is the sum of bracket midpoints: an estimate this site computes, not a disclosed amount. If you use it, call it an estimate based on bracket midpoints and give the disclosed range next to it.

3. 3

   The top bracket has no ceiling

   The highest brackets ("Over $50,000,000", and "Over $1,000,000" for a spouse or dependent) have no upper bound, so max_usd is null and the range is written "≥ $X". A total that includes such a row is reported as at least its floor, never with an invented upper bound. In a midpoint estimate an open-ended row contributes its floor; on a single trade it has no midpoint at all.

4. 4

   Exact figures only when filed

   A handful of filers write a precise amount ("$2,722.50") instead of ticking a bracket. Only then is exact_usd set, and only then may the trade be quoted as one figure.

5. 5

   Scanned paper filings stay out of totals

   Some House members file on paper; the Clerk publishes a scan. Those scans are transcribed: a model reads the handwriting (names, dates, assets) and a separate grid reader decides which amount and type box is ticked. Transcribed rows are shown and labelled, and they count toward trade counts and member/ticker lists, but they are excluded from every dollar total, ranking by volume and alert. In the API they carry transcribed: true and counted_in_totals: false; do not add their amounts into any total. Senate paper filings are not read at all.

6. 6

   Disclosure delay is trade date to filing date

   Delay is measured from the trade date to the date the report reached the House Clerk or Senate eFD. It is not the form's "Notification Date": someone trading their own account is notified the same day, so that column reads 0 however long the filing took. The STOCK Act allows 45 days; a trade disclosed later is late. Late filing is a reporting fact, not an allegation of wrongdoing. Where the filing's own dates contradict each other the delay is null rather than negative.

7. 7

   Dates are reproduced as filed

   A few filings carry mistyped dates, such as a trade date in the future or after the filing date. The data stays faithful to the filing; such rows are flagged (dates_inconsistent) rather than corrected.

8. 8

   Insider values are shares × reported price

   Form 4 filers report shares and a price, so an insider value is exact arithmetic but computed: shares × the reported price. Filers may report a weighted-average price over several executions; the real price range is then only in the footnotes. A row with no price has a value of null (unknown, not zero), and a row whose as-filed value is implausible is shown but excluded from totals. Say "shares × reported price", never "disclosed range".

9. 9

   Congressional and insider data are never combined

   The two datasets measure different things (brackets versus computed values, a 45-day versus a two-business-day deadline). They are shown side by side but never summed, ranked or averaged together. "Distinct insiders" counts primary reporting owners: a joint filing is one decision.

10. 10

    Recent weeks are incomplete

    Because members have up to 45 days to disclose, and some file later still, the most recent six weeks of trade dates are always incomplete. Compare periods by filing date, or leave a margin.

11. 11

    The track record is a stock's move, not a profit

    The track record (/politicians?view=track, /api/v1/track-record) measures, for each decision (one member, ticker, direction and filing), the stock's close-to-close move over 30, 90 or 180 trading days minus SPY's over the same days, read the way the trade pointed (a sale followed by a fall is positive). It starts from the first close on or after the trade date (after_trade) and from the first close after the filing date (after_disclosure, what a member of the public could have copied). It is not what the member earned: the exit, the position size and dividends are unknown, and no dollar amount enters it (brackets are not amounts, so every decision counts once). Member scores are shrunk toward zero by n / (n + k) and come with a 90% bootstrap interval; an interval that crosses zero cannot tell the record from no edge. Options, non-equity assets, exchanges, transcribed rows, rows with contradictory dates and tickers without a price series are excluded and counted. Say "the stocks X traded beat the S&P 500 by N points on average over 90 trading days after the trade", never "X earned", "X's returns", "alpha" or "the best trader". It is not evidence of wrongdoing.

12. 12

    Not investment advice

    This site reproduces public disclosures for information. It is not investment advice, and a disclosed trade is not evidence of wrongdoing. Cite the filing (source_url) and the date of the data (meta.data_as_of) when you quote it.

• A scheduled GitHub Actions job polls the House Clerk, Senate eFD and SEC EDGAR, asking for a run every 90 minutes; GitHub delivers scheduled runs late and unevenly, typically every few hours.
• Each run commits the updated SQLite database; the dashboard and API re-read it within about two minutes.
• meta.data_as_of in every API response is the time of the last pipeline write.

• Congressional coverage is filings filed in 2026. Trade dates can be older, because some members file late catch-up reports.
• Filings the pipeline could not read are not in the data; they are listed on the Pipeline page.
• Senate paper filings are not transcribed. House scans are transcribed but kept out of every total.
• Only open-market Form 4 purchases and sales from filings reaching $50,000 in one direction are kept; amendments (4/A), Forms 3 and 5 and derivative transactions are not ingested yet.
• Option contracts (call/put, strike, expiry) are read only where the filing's text names them; a strike is never guessed.
• Industry groups come from the issuer's SEC SIC code; ETFs, funds and unlisted assets have none and stay unclassified.
• Members are grouped by their name on the official roster; a filing the roster could not match keeps the name printed on it.
• The track record covers stocks and ETFs with a ticker and a price series from an unofficial source (Yahoo Finance's chart endpoint); delisted, renamed or acquired tickers drop out, and a decision counts only once its horizon has passed on both clocks, so recent months are missing. Corporate insiders have no track record yet.

A read-only JSON API (no key, CORS open) with the rules above in every response's meta.caveats. Amounts come as min_usd / max_usd with the disclosed text, and any midpoint is named an estimate. Described by OpenAPI 3.1; summarised for language models in llms.txt.