Capitol Trades: Tracking Stock Market Transactions of Politicians

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Data freshness and mechanics

  • Disclosures are governed by the STOCK Act: trades must be reported within 30–45 days, but the fine for lateness is small, so many members batch-report roughly every 30 days.
  • Some users note apparent lags of up to ~60 days for specific individuals; others mention hearing 90 days, which is unclear and possibly incorrect.
  • Because reports are after-the-fact and often bundled, the dataset is inherently delayed and “noisy,” mixing old and recent trades in each filing.
  • The site shows trades as recent as a couple of days ago, but it’s not clearly explained how they source or process the raw disclosures.

Usefulness for trading vs accountability

  • Many see this more as a political transparency tool than a serious trading edge: delayed disclosures make followers “dumb money” compared to the original trades.
  • Others argue some political trades seem to play out over weeks or months, so a few days’ delay might still leave room to profit, especially in niche tickers.
  • There is skepticism that copying politicians is smart investing; several references (papers, theses) are cited claiming no abnormal returns or even underperformance versus index funds.

Politician performance and Pelosi fixation

  • Commenters debate the obsession with one high-profile figure:
    • Some insist that politician’s household trading isn’t unusually good and mostly mirrors tech-heavy indices, with lots of options and volatility.
    • Others argue that even if returns aren’t spectacular, the perceived conflict and use of nonpublic context is the real problem, not raw performance.
  • Several note other politicians appear to have done better, but that gets less attention; some push back that corruption isn’t canceled out by pointing to others.

Ethics, conflicts of interest, and reform ideas

  • Strong contingent: congressional (and possibly executive) stock trading should be completely banned.
  • More moderate proposals:
    • Allow only broad index funds (S&P 500 / total-market) or small-cap funds.
    • Require blind trusts or fully arm’s-length public pension-style funds.
    • Impose insider-style rules: pre-set trading plans, trading windows, immediate or pre-announced disclosures.
  • Counterarguments: banning all stock ownership is seen by some as unrealistic given retirement needs; conflict is framed as mainly about individual stocks, not diversified funds.

Alternative tools, products, and site quality

  • Other tracking tools mentioned: QuiverQuant, Autopilot, StockCircle, plus ETFs like NANC and KRUZ that replicate congressional trading patterns.
  • Some criticize the featured site as newsletter/clickbait “blog spam” and prefer more data-centric alternatives.
  • Several note that similar “track Congress trades” sites appear on HN periodically, reflecting persistent frustration with perceived political self-dealing.