Members of Congress know things that everyday investors do not. So, when lawmakers invest in stocks, they must make out pretty well.
That’s the theory behind a popular pastime in the investing industry: Tracking the stock-picking habits of Congress, and buying and selling the same stocks yourself.
Websites such as Quiver Quantitative and Unusual Whales allow users to monitor which members of Congress are trading stocks, what stocks they’re buying and selling, and whose portfolios perform the best.
The logic behind tracking congressional stock trades runs like this: Members of Congress make laws. They know more than most about how those laws will impact corporate America. And they have that intel before the rest of us.
“These are people who in many cases write the laws. They see what’s going on. Hey, this person must know something if they’re making this trade,” said David Meier, a senior investment analyst at The Motley Fool.
Does Congress do better in the stock market than the rest of us?
Insider trading laws prohibit people from buying or selling stocks based on nonpublic information. A 2012 law specifically bars members of Congress from insider trading with intel gained on Capitol Hill. No congressperson has been prosecuted under that law, according to the Government Accountability Project.
The same law requires members of Congress to report stock trades within 45 days, giving curious investors a way to track congressional stock picks.
Considering those guardrails, does Congress do better in the stock market than the rest of us?
The evidence is mixed. Some academic studies have found that House and Senate stock picks outperform the market. Others have found the reverse. One 2025 report found that congressional leaders outperform rank-and-file members.
James Kardatzke, CEO of Quiver Quantitative, has tracked trades made by members of Congress since the launch of his site in 2020. Kardatzke said that if an investor focuses on the stocks most frequently purchased by congresspersons, “that strategy has consistently outperformed the market over the last couple of decades.”
Members of Congress made 13,324 stock trades totaling $636 million in 2025 through early December, according to a report from Common Cause.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, made 406 trades totaling about $80 million, making him the top congressional trader of 2025. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, made 1,029 trades totaling nearly $76 million.
The most successful congressional stock trader of 2025 was Rep. Tim Moore, R-North Carolina, whose portfolio gained 52% that year, according to Quiver Quantitative. (Moore lost his seat in the November midterms.) Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saw his portfolio rise 50%.
“It’s worth noting, they’re not all good at this,” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Some people have made a ton of money. Some people have taken a ton of losses.”
Copycat traders mimic congressional stock picks
Even so, viral stories of congressional stock gains inspire copycats, who buy up the same stocks and hope for the same returns.
“The theory being that members of Congress have a pretty good idea if legislation is going to pass or fail,” said Caleb Silver, editor in chief of Investopedia.
Tracking those picks became easier with the advent of modern online portals like Quiver Quantitative.
Kardatzke said his site plans to launch an ETF next year that tracks congressional stock transactions, potentially making it easier than ever to buy and sell stocks like a member of Congress.
Kardatzke said he and his twin brother co-founder were inspired early on by “news stories about members of Congress that would go into these confidential briefings, get all this information about what was going on with COVID, and then go out and sell a bunch of stock.”
Why do members of Congress buy specific stocks? It’s hard to tell.
If a member of Congress were engaged in insider trading, it would be hard to tell from regulatory filings. Indeed, it’s hard to know their motives at all.
“You don’t know why they’re buying it,” said Seth Benjamin Mullikin, a certified financial planner in Charlotte, North Carolina. “It could be that they think it’s a good long-term holding. Or maybe they’re buying it because they know something about the oil market we don’t know.”
If everyday investors want to match the investment moves made by members of Congress, they may have a hard time replicating their success. The reason is timing: Congress has more than a month to report a trade to the public.
“By the time you get that information, it’s already happened, so you’re not ahead of the market,” Libowitz said.
His group has pushed for an outright ban on Congress members owning individual stocks.
The Stop Insider Trading Act, which would have barred members of Congress and their families from buying individual stocks, passed out of the House in 2026, but died in the Senate.
President Donald Trump urged passage of the Stop Insider Trading Act. But Democrats blocked the bill, saying it didn’t go far enough because it didn’t ban ownership of stocks outright. In the runup to the midterms, each party accused the other of profiting from congressional stock trading.
Should everyday investors buy the same stocks as Congress?
In any case, there’s no ethical dilemma facing everyday investors who want to buy and sell the stocks favored by Congress, according to Libowitz and others, for the simple reason that they don’t have any inside information.
“I think there’s nothing unethical about that,” Libowitz said.
As an investment strategy, however, tracking congressional stocks gets mixed reviews from the experts.
The main problem, said Silver, of Investopedia, is that everyday investors don’t know when or why members of Congress buy and sell stocks.
“Following congressional stock picks that you’re hearing about after the fact is not a discipline,” he said, “it’s a gamble.”
A better strategy, said Meier of Motley Fool, might be to consider congressional stock transactions as one factor in favor of buying a stock you already like.
“Getting a piece of data that confirms a belief you already have, maybe that is a good thing,” Meier said. “You need to do your own homework.”
Reporting by Daniel de Visé, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
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