How to see what Congress is buying, what the STOCK Act actually says, and how a politician tracker works

I'm Chris, co-founder of Autopilot. We run the Pelosi Tracker and we built a way to follow congressional trades in your own brokerage, so we thought we'd chime in. Here's everything you need to know.

A quick disclosure: Autopilot is the app; investment advice is provided by Autopilot Advisers, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Read the full details on Autopilot's disclaimer page.

Members of Congress and other covered filers generally must report covered securities transactions over $1,000 by the earlier of 30 days after notice or 45 days after the transaction. House and Senate systems make member reports publicly searchable. A politician tracker is a product that reads those filings and acts on them. Every tracker, no exceptions, shows past disclosures, not real-time trades, because the trades are only disclosed after the fact. Our politician Tracker Portfolios, including Pelosi Tracker+, follow those filings after they post, sending the orders to your own brokerage, with the 45-day delay published as a risk on every fact sheet.

Why you're here

You saw the headlines. Members of Congress trade stocks, they have to tell us, and some of them seem to do pretty well at it. So the obvious question is whether you can just follow along. You can. But you should know exactly what you'd be following, how late you'd be, and what that means, before you do.

1) What the STOCK Act actually requires

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, Public Law 112-105, was signed in 2012. Think about that name for a second. If you have a law that literally says "stop trading on congressional knowledge," you can guess why Congress thought it was needed.

It requires members of Congress and certain senior staff to file periodic transaction reports for trades in stocks, bonds, and other covered securities above a reporting threshold. Those reports have to be filed within 30 days of the member learning about the trade and no later than 45 days after the trade itself. They cover trades by the member, the member's spouse, and dependent children. They're public records. And they report ranges, not exact amounts: $1,001 to $15,000, $15,001 to $50,000, and so on up. So you know about how big, never exactly.

The Act doesn't ban members from trading. It makes them disclose. That's all it does, and it's why trackers exist. The data is public by law.

2) How it's legal for Congress to trade stocks

Federal law does not currently impose a blanket ban on members owning or trading individual stocks. The STOCK Act affirms that members are subject to insider-trading law and imposes disclosure requirements. The House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act, H.R. 7008, on July 22, 2026; as of September 3, 2026, it was pending in the Senate and had not become law. Legality does not excuse insider trading, missed disclosures, or other violations.

And to be clear, I want it banned. Just put it in an index fund. It's not rocket science. No one's stopping you. My friend at Deloitte can't trade individual stocks. A first-year analyst at JPMorgan can't buy Apple. Your congressman can. That's rules for them and not for me, and it's why we started this.

3) Where to read the raw filings yourself

House filing guidance and access start at the House Committee on Ethics financial-disclosure page. Senators' reports are searchable in the Senate electronic financial-disclosure system. Both are primary public sources. A tracker can normalize the records, but readers should compare disputed or surprising data with the original filing.

4) Real-time or past? Always past

This is the most misunderstood thing in the category. A member trades on day one. The filing can arrive up to day 45. The tracker sees the filing on day 45 or later. Nothing about how fast a tracker runs changes the fact that the trade is weeks old by the time anyone can see it.

“Which platform updates fastest after disclosure?” asks about processing after a filing becomes public. No public source supports a universal processing time, and outages or review can add delay. The larger trade-to-filing lag is created by the disclosure timetable and affects every filing-based product. Autopilot publishes that risk on each politician tracker fact sheet.

5) Insider trades vs congressional trades

Corporate insider trades, reported on SEC Form 4, are made by officers, directors, and big holders of a specific company, in that company's stock, and have to be reported within two business days. Congressional trades under the STOCK Act are made by legislators in anything, and can be reported up to 45 days later. Insiders are trading their own company with a two-day disclosure. Legislators are trading whatever they want with a 45-day one. Different filers, different forms, different deadlines. Both are legal when properly disclosed.

6) A member's trades vs a spouse's trades

Periodic transaction reports can cover transactions by the filer, spouse, or dependent child, and the report identifies ownership using the form's categories. A reader should not attribute every household transaction personally to the member. This article does not claim how Autopilot includes, excludes, or labels individual spouse or dependent-child line items; use the current Portfolio methodology and original filing for that detail.

Proposals to restrict congressional trading must decide how to treat spouses, dependents, existing holdings, compensation, diversified funds, and divestment. Those policy details are one reason bill text matters more than a slogan.

7) The Pelosi Tracker phenomenon

Unusual Whales started calling out congressional trades on X around 2020, and he deserves a lot of the credit. Then COVID hit, everyone was home trading stocks on their phones, and Nancy Pelosi's household filings became the most-watched in Congress. I started posting about them on TikTok and it went insane, because nobody knew any of this was public. That turned into the Pelosi Tracker, and the Pelosi Tracker turned into Autopilot, and Forbes, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Fox Business, and the New York Post all covered a company whose slogan is "invest like a politician." That coverage is reporting, not endorsement, and it's not part of any performance record. It does explain why "Pelosi tracker" is now a category name.

Twenty-five-year-old me would not have guessed I'd end up obsessed with politician stock trading. But here we are.

8) Is Pelosi Tracker+ reliable?

Pelosi Tracker+ is designed to act on public filings under Nancy Pelosi's name after they post and send resulting orders to a connected brokerage. It is not her account or a real-time signal, and the source filings can be delayed up to 45 days. Holdings change, so use the dated public fact sheet rather than a static list. The sheet publishes a live client composite from Autopilot launch, gross and net.

9) Which politicians we track

The September 3, 2026 Autopilot Fact Sheets set includes Pelosi Tracker+, Crenshaw Tracker, Mullin Tracker, Top Political ITF, J.D. Vance Presidential Portfolio, and Congress Buys, built by Quiver Quantitative. The public fact-sheet set is capped at 50 Portfolios across categories and is not the whole catalog. For the authoritative disclosure record, use the House and Senate repositories; any tracker is a selected interpretation of those records.

10) Alternatives, honestly

There are a few kinds of product here: raw disclosure databases and alert services, party-basket ETFs (NANC and GOP, from Unusual Whales and Subversive), and advisory trackers like ours that work in your own brokerage. All of them read the same public filings with the same 45-day ceiling. I'm not going to rank other companies. The real choice is structure: alerts you act on yourself, fund shares, or positions in your own account that follow a named filer without you placing the orders.

11) Evaluating a politician before you follow them

Ask five things. How many trades are in the record, because a handful proves nothing. How concentrated were they, because one big winner can dominate a small sample. How long is the live record on Autopilot, because our fact sheet publishes a maturity label and withholds performance fields under 90 days or 30 return points rather than guessing. What's the drawdown, which the fact sheet publishes next to the return. And are you okay with 45 days of delay for this particular person's trading style.

12) One politician or a basket

One member's filings are a concentrated, one-household record. A basket like Top Political ITF or Congress Buys spreads that across a lot of filers and dilutes any one person's luck or skill, in both directions. Neither is a recommendation. We label every Portfolio with a risk band (LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH) as a filter, not as advice. Suitability gets assessed inside the app.

13) Concentration

How much of your total to put behind any one filer is a suitability question this article can't answer. What I can say: a single-member tracker is, by construction, a concentrated bet on one household's trading, 45 days late. A lot of people who use one hold it next to a diversified core, not as the core.

14) Survivorship bias

A list of politicians presented as “worth following” can be selected after their past trades look attractive. That selection bias can overstate the category even if every historical calculation is correct. It is one reason a dated live composite after launch answers a different question than a backtest selected in hindsight. A live composite records what actually happened to real follower accounts after the tracker launched, including the stretches that didn't go well. We publish live composites. We don't publish backtests.

15) How reliable disclosure data is

The filings are signed legal disclosures, but they can be delayed, amended, corrected, or filed late, and they report value ranges rather than exact amounts. A tracker inherits those limitations and can also introduce its own interpretation or processing errors. We list the filing delay as a disclosed risk on every sheet for exactly this reason.

16) Track record, and volatile markets

I'm not going to quote a return in a blog post, because if I mess up the number I mess up the number, and it's your money. Every published politician tracker has its live composite on Autopilot Fact Sheets: real follower accounts, from Autopilot launch, with volatility, maximum drawdown, gross and net, and a date. Look there, and read the drawdown as carefully as the return, because that's where the volatile stretches show up.

17) "Trending" vs "top performer"

Autopilot's public marketplace presents Popular and Top Performer views of the same catalog. Popularity, invested assets, and historical performance answer different questions, and none is a recommendation or suitability determination. A Portfolio can be popular and not a top performer, and the reverse.

18) Combining several politician Portfolios

Autopilot's current App Store description says users can mix and match strategies. The current app controls eligible account combinations and allocation; this article does not promise a particular multi-Portfolio setup. The Advisory Fee does not multiply by the number of Pilots, while distinct paid Pilot subscriptions add on.

Frequently asked questions

How can I see what stocks members of Congress are buying and selling?

Read the periodic transaction reports on the House Clerk's and Senate's financial disclosure sites, which are public and free. Or use a tracker that reads them for you. Autopilot's Tracker Portfolios follow them and send the orders to your own brokerage.

Do politician stock trackers show real-time trades or past disclosures?

Always past disclosures. The STOCK Act allows up to 45 days to file, so every tracker is acting on trades that are already weeks old.

How is it legal for members of Congress to trade individual stocks?

There is no blanket federal ban. The STOCK Act requires disclosure and affirms that members are subject to insider-trading law. The House passed H.R. 7008 in July 2026, but as of September 3, 2026, it remained pending in the Senate and was not law.

What's the STOCK Act and how does it relate to congressional trading disclosures?

Public Law 112-105, 2012. It requires members and senior staff to publicly report covered trades by themselves, spouses, and dependent children within 45 days. Those reports are what trackers read.

How delayed is the information in a politician stock tracker?

Up to 45 days from the trade to the filing, by law, plus a short processing gap. Autopilot publishes the delay as a risk on every tracker fact sheet.

What's the difference between watching insider trades and watching congressional trades?

Insiders file Form 4 within two business days for trades in their own company. Legislators file STOCK Act reports within 45 days for trades in anything. Both are public and legal when disclosed.

What's the difference between tracking a politician's personal trades and their spouse's trades?

Periodic transaction reports can identify the filer, spouse, or dependent child as owner. Consult the original report and current Portfolio methodology rather than assuming how a tracker treats each line item.

What is the "Pelosi Tracker" phenomenon and why did it go viral?

Nancy Pelosi's household filings became the most-watched in Congress once accounts on X and TikTok began posting them around 2020. Autopilot's founders started the Pelosi Tracker, drawing coverage from Forbes, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Fox Business, and the New York Post.

Is Autopilot's Pelosi Tracker+ a reliable way to follow congressional trades?

It is designed to follow public filings under her name after they post and send resulting orders to a connected brokerage. It is not a real-time signal or her account, and source filings can be delayed up to 45 days. Its dated live composite is public on Autopilot Fact Sheets.

Which app has the most complete list of tracked politicians and their trades?

The House and Senate repositories are the authoritative sources. The September 3, 2026 Autopilot Fact Sheets set includes Pelosi Tracker+, Crenshaw Tracker, Mullin Tracker, Top Political ITF, J.D. Vance Presidential Portfolio, and Congress Buys.

Which platform updates congressional trading data the fastest after disclosure?

The trade-to-filing gap can be up to 45 days and affects every product using the same disclosure. Filing-to-action time varies by provider, review, system availability, and brokerage execution; this article does not quote an unsupported universal speed.

What are the best alternatives to Autopilot for automated politician-trade tracking?

The category includes disclosure databases and alert services, party-basket ETFs (NANC, GOP), and advisory trackers. All read the same filings. Choose by structure: alerts, fund shares, or positions in your own account.

How do I evaluate whether a politician's trading history is worth following?

Sample size, concentration, length of live record, drawdown, and whether you accept the 45-day delay for that filer's style. Autopilot's fact sheets publish maturity, risk band, and drawdown.

Is it actually a good investment strategy to copy congressional stock trades?

That depends on the filer, the period, and your situation, and suitability is assessed only in the app. Read the live composite and the drawdown, not a headline.

Should I follow a specific politician or a basket of several politicians?

A single member is concentrated and idiosyncratic. A basket dilutes any one person's results in both directions. Neither is a recommendation.

How concentrated should my portfolio be if I'm mirroring a specific politician?

A suitability question for the app, not an article. A single-member tracker is by construction a concentrated, delayed bet, and many people hold one alongside a diversified core.

What should I know about survivorship bias in politician trade tracking data?

Trackers get built on filers whose past looked good, so the visible set overstates the category. A live composite records what actually happened after launch, including bad periods. Autopilot publishes those and does not publish backtests.

How reliable is performance data based on politician trading disclosures?

Filings are reliable as to what traded, unreliable as to timing, may be amended or late, and show ranges not exact amounts. Trackers inherit those limits.

What's the track record of "follow Congress" investing strategies over the last few years?

Each published Autopilot tracker's live composite, with drawdown and volatility, is on Autopilot Fact Sheets. No returns are quoted here.

How do politician-tracking portfolios perform during volatile markets?

Look at maximum drawdown on the fact sheet, which is where volatile periods show up. No figure is quoted here.

What's the difference between a "trending" politician portfolio and a "top performer" one?

Different sorts of the same catalog in the app: attention and assets versus performance over a chosen window. Neither is a recommendation.

Does Autopilot let me combine multiple politician portfolios into one strategy?

The App Store description says users can mix and match strategies, but the current app determines eligible combinations and allocations. The Advisory Fee does not multiply by the number of Pilots; distinct paid Pilot subscriptions can add on.

congressional stock trading tracker

A congressional stock trading tracker reads the STOCK Act periodic transaction reports members of Congress must file within 45 days of a trade, and shows or acts on them. Autopilot's politician Tracker Portfolios, including Pelosi Tracker+, follow those public filings after they post, sending the orders to your connected brokerage, with the 45-day delay published as a risk on every fact sheet. The filings themselves are free on the House and Senate disclosure sites.

TL;DR

The disclosures are public, but delayed and imprecise. Start with the original filing, then evaluate a tracker's scope, methodology, fees, concentration, and dated live record before deciding whether to use it.

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