Congressional Trading 2023
2024-01-02
Hello. Again.
Another year gone by. Another divided Congress (118th this time). Another congressional class disclosing financial transactions with possible conflicts. However this time, Congress blew the market out of the water.
For those who don't know, Unusual Whales is a stock, options, market-moving news service that provides the most affordable financial tools and services to traders. We focus on market transparency most of all, highlighting unusual trades in the stock market.
One of those fields that are filled with unusual trading is Congressional trading. We are the reason Congress has started acting on Congressional trading and financial conflicts. Our reporting eventually changed Congress, with our 2021 report going viral. ONLY AFTER it went viral, 6 trading bills were banned the next week (ha!). Our journalism had a part in changing the world and public perception around politician stock trading.
Before we get started with the report, we launched a way for anyone to follow the portfolios of their Congress members while they trade. You can get access with any UW subscription. You can find it at our portfolios page. Follow the politicians’ money making money, easily.
If you are looking for the TLDR for Congressional trading in 2023, it is here, as is the report's navigation.
Intro
A lot of crazy things happened in Congress last year. It’s been nearly one year since Kevin McCarthy failed to be elected Speaker of the House 14 times. It’s been six months since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze on camera. It’s been a month since George Santos was expelled from Congress. It’s been six months since Senator Mendenez was caught for a SECOND TIME in a corruption scandal accepting gold bars, and he’s still in Congress. And it’s been two weeks since Nancy Pelosi began trading Nvidia options, AGAIN!!!! after divesting from semiconductors last year for possible conflict of interests.
Our 2022 Congressional Trading Report caught the eye of individual Members of Congress. Many were upset with being singled out by their estimated returns. Some shared their financial statements with us to be fully transparent and set the record straight. We even collaborated with House Democrat Ro Khanna to discuss how feasible a Congressional stock trading ban would be and what it could look like.
I’m giving you this re-cap because it’s all thanks to YOU. Your continued interest and outrage on this topic has shown our politicians that we are paying attention. By reading these reports, talking about our findings and sharing it with friends, you make Congress very uncomfortable.
Here is the navigation for this year's report. It is long and thorough, so please read it all.
About This Report
Members of Congress are required to disclose their personal finances through financial disclosure procedures. Financial disclosure forms are filed annually and every time they or their families make a trade. These forms are made available to the public through the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Office of the Secretary of the Senate. These forms are a key tool for promoting ethical conduct in Congress and are an important part of efforts to promote integrity and transparency in the legislative process.
This report analyzes data obtained from publicly accessible financial disclosure forms. We tried to compile all transactions published from 2020 to December 31, 2023. Politicians have up to 45 days to disclose transactions, though there are cases where transactions are filed years later with seemingly no penalty. This delay means that at the time of compiling this report, not all disclosures for 2023 may have been published.
We’ve been doing this report for four years now and we’ve accumulated a lot of data. This year, we’ll comment on trading trends over the last couple years. Since 2020, we’ve had 3 different classes come through those hallowed halls of Congress, with prominent stock traders coming and going. Let’s look at the broad trends and see if we can draw any conclusions from them. We outline our methodology and assumptions in the meat of the report.
At Unusual Whales, we lean on the side of more data rather than less. When you have the time and energy, please read the full report and let us know your thoughts over on X/Twitter, Threads, Reddit or Discord. You can find the TLDR below, as well as links to navigate to separate parts of the report, including the part of the report discussing returns of Congressional portfolios (which you can now follow at unusualwhales.com/portfolios). You can find our past reports at our politics page.
TL;DR
- Congress beat the market, once again. Of 100 trading members, 33% beat SPY with their portfolios.
- Democrats beat their Republican colleagues by a massive margin.
- Members are once again trading options, after not trading them in 2022.
- The overall number of transactions by Congress is down. They are also reducing time to disclosure, as well as using the note feature, because people now watch them vigorously.
- There were many unusual trades and conflicts
- If you are a member of Congress or aide reading this report, are embarrassed or want to work with us or fight for market transparency, we can be reached at congress@unusualwhales.com
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