The STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012) is a U.S. law that bars members of Congress from trading on non-public information and requires them to publicly disclose securities trades over $1,000 within 45 days. Those disclosures are what make congressional stock-trade tracking possible.
| Law | Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act — enacted April 2012 |
|---|---|
| Who it covers | Members of the U.S. House and Senate, plus certain senior congressional staff |
| Threshold | Securities transactions over $1,000 must be reported |
| Deadline | Within 30 days of notice, and no later than 45 days after the transaction |
| How it's filed | Periodic Transaction Reports (PTRs), filed with the House Clerk or the Secretary of the Senate |
| Late penalty | A standard $200 late-filing fee (sometimes waived) |
| Where to find it | Public on the House and Senate disclosure portals, free |
What the STOCK Act is
The STOCK Act — short for the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act — became law in April 2012. It did two things. First, it made explicit that members of Congress and their staff are not exempt from insider-trading law: they may not trade on material non-public information obtained through their official positions. Second, and more useful for the public, it required them to disclose their securities transactions promptly, in a standardized, searchable form.
That second part is what turned congressional trading from a rumor into a dataset.
What must be disclosed
Members of the House and Senate must file a Periodic Transaction Report (PTR) for any purchase, sale, or exchange of stocks, bonds, or other securities over $1,000. The report lists the asset, the transaction type, the date, and an amount range (disclosures use brackets like “$1,001–$15,000” rather than exact figures). The same obligation extends to trades by a spouse or dependent child.
What it does not require is precision on size — the bracketed ranges mean you know roughly how big a trade was, not exactly.
The 45-day deadline — and late filers
A member must file a PTR within 30 days of being notified of a transaction, and in no case later than 45 days after the trade itself. Miss the window and the standard penalty is a $200 late fee, which is modest enough that late filings are common and sometimes simply absorbed.
The lag is the thing to internalize: by law you can be looking at a trade up to 45 days old, and in practice sometimes older. A congressional trade is evidence of what a member did, disclosed after the fact — useful for spotting patterns and conviction, weaker for timing.
Committee conflicts
The disclosures that draw the most scrutiny are trades by a member in a company or sector that a committee they serve on directly oversees — say, a member of a defense committee trading defense contractors, or a banking-committee member trading banks. It is not automatically a violation, but the potential information advantage is exactly why these trades are worth flagging and reading closely.
How to track it
Every PTR is public and free on the House and Senate disclosure portals. The catch is format: thousands of individual PDFs, bracketed amounts, and no ranking. Pulling the signal out — the biggest buys, the committee conflicts, the late filers — is the work Gunpowder’s congressional briefings and the Smart Money congress tracker do for you. For the corporate-insider counterpart, see what a Form 4 is.
Frequently asked questions
Does the STOCK Act ban members of Congress from owning or trading stocks?
No. It bars trading on material non-public information and mandates public disclosure, but it does not prohibit members from owning or trading individual stocks. Several reform bills have proposed an outright ban; as of 2026 none has become law.
Why are congressional trades often disclosed so late?
The law allows up to 45 days between a trade and its disclosure, and in practice some members file even later and pay the $200 fee. So the public frequently learns about a trade weeks after it actually happened — which is why timing and late-filing flags matter.
What is a committee conflict?
It's when a member trades in a company or sector that a committee they sit on directly oversees. It isn't necessarily illegal, but these are among the most scrutinized disclosures because of the potential information advantage.
Where can I see congressional stock trades?
They're free on the U.S. House and Senate financial-disclosure sites. The raw Periodic Transaction Report PDFs are slow to scan by hand, so tools that rank, theme, and flag them — like Gunpowder — make the data usable.
Gunpowder turns House and Senate STOCK Act disclosures into ranked briefings — who's trading, who's trading in their committee's sectors, and who files late — so you never have to parse a PTR PDF by hand.
$30/mo after a 14-day free trial — no credit card required. See pricing.