Congress Live Activity: Legislator Trades in Near-Real-Time

Why Legislator Trades Are a Distinct Signal

Under the 2012 STOCK Act, members of Congress and senior staff must disclose trades within 45 days. That delay makes individual trades too stale to front-run — but the aggregate flow is informative. Committee chairs often trade names under their jurisdiction immediately before public hearings. Armed Services members buy defense contractors in quarters that align with budget cycles. A feed of all disclosures, filtered by chamber, committee, and ticker, turns the STOCK Act from disclosure-theater into a real dataset.

What the Congress Live Activity Card Shows

The Congress Live Activity card is a rolling feed of legislator trades as they're filed, ordered by filing date (not trade date — so you see the newest disclosures first). Each row shows: legislator name + chamber + party, committee assignments, ticker + name, direction (buy / sell / option), size range (the STOCK Act discloses ranges, not exact amounts), trade date, filing date, and a "jurisdictional flag" when the ticker is in the legislator's committee domain. Filter dropdowns narrow by chamber, committee, party, sector, or ticker.

Reading the Feed

Three patterns are worth watching. First, jurisdictional flags — when a Financial Services Committee member buys a bank before a hearing, or a Health Committee member buys a pharma before an FDA decision, the implied information advantage is non-zero; these trades deserve attention even if you don't act on them. Second, size range escalation — a legislator who normally trades in the $1-15k range and suddenly files a $1M+ disclosure has decided something meaningful; those outliers are worth studying. Third, cluster across chambers — when multiple members in the same committee all buy the same name inside a two-week window, a briefing or vote is usually behind the cluster.

Where It Fits

Pair with the per-ticker Congress Summary card for the single-name view, Congress Activity for the rolling book, and Congress Diff for quarter-over-quarter change. For the lobbying-side policy view, use Lobbying.

Open the Congress Live Activity card → /app/congress