The Congressional Alpha Playbook
Mathematically validated copy-trade strategies derived from 11,820 congressional buy disclosures and 12,767 sells, priced via Yahoo Finance, alpha-tested against SPY. Updated 2026-04-16.
The 5 Strongest Signals (ranked by 30d Sharpe)
Out of 11,820 buy trades analysed, the baseline 'follow everything' strategy delivers 0.00% alpha. The signal lives in the filtered subsets below.
Democrat Big Sell → Short
When a Democratic Congress member files a sell ≥ $50,000, the stock systematically underperforms SPY for the next 30–90 days. Best raw Sharpe in the dataset.
Democrat files Sell · value_mid ≥ $50kWhen Pelosi files an AAPL sell at her typical $6.5M average, that's the textbook trigger.
Committee $150k+ Conviction Buy
Buys flagged as overlapping with the politician's committee jurisdiction, sized at $150,000 or more. Highest single-trade alpha — but only ~20 qualifying trades per year.
Committee-flagged Buy · value_mid ≥ $150kMcCormick (Senate Banking) buying Goldman Sachs at $175k × 5 trades is the prototype.
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30+ ranked signals, named individuals, sector strategy and back-tested templates.
Free account · No credit card · Built from 25,000+ STOCK Act disclosures
The Critical Party Asymmetry
The single most surprising finding in the data: Democratic and Republican signals are not symmetrical. Republicans don't sell on information.
Hypothesis: Democratic sells in size tend to anticipate regulatory or policy headwinds the seller has insight into. Republican sells in size tend to be wealth-management (diversification, lifestyle) rather than informational — and so should not be shorted.
Politicians Worth Following
Five named individuals with statistically validated alpha or signature trading patterns.
See the politicians worth following
We name the 5 individuals with statistically validated alpha (Sharpe up to 2.01).
Free account · No credit card · Built from 25,000+ STOCK Act disclosures
Sector Strategy: Chase, Neutral, Fade
Some sectors have persistent positive alpha when politicians buy them. Others have persistent negative alpha — meaning a politician buy is a contrarian sell signal.
| Sector | α (30d) | α (90d) | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Services | +0.68% | +0.47% | Chase |
| Industrials | +0.58% | +1.58% | Chase |
| Consumer Cyclical | +0.31% | -1.17% | Neutral |
| Technology | +0.13% | +0.27% | Neutral |
Unlock the full Congressional Playbook
30+ ranked signals, named individuals, sector strategy and back-tested templates.
Free account · No credit card · Built from 25,000+ STOCK Act disclosures
Three Trade-Ready Templates
Concrete entry, hold, and stop parameters for the highest-conviction signals.
Strategy A — Democrat Conviction Long
The core, scalable long signal. ~15 qualifying trades per year.
Strategy B — Democrat Sell Short
The single best Sharpe in the dataset. Holds at 90 days.
Strategy C — Senate Finance Accumulation
Highest information edge, low frequency. The McCormick template.
Get the trade-ready strategy templates
Three concrete A/B/C strategies with entry, hold, and stop parameters.
Free account · No credit card · Built from 25,000+ STOCK Act disclosures
The Filing Delay Reality Check
The STOCK Act gives politicians 45 days to disclose. Only 4.7% file within 7 days. By the time you see most trades, the alpha window is half-spent.
The math: Median filing delay is ~22 days. For a 30-day alpha window post-trade, you capture roughly 8 of 30 days = 27%. For a 90-day window, you capture 68 of 90 = 76%. Long-horizon strategies survive the delay; short-horizon ones don't.
What NOT to Do
Anti-patterns the data clearly disconfirms.
Don't follow buys under $15k
78.9% of all trades fall here — pure managed-account noise. Zero alpha.
Don't short Republican sells
Republican sells ≥ $50k have NEGATIVE short alpha (−0.25% at 30d). They're wealth-management exits, not informational.
Don't buy Healthcare, Consumer Defensive, or Real Estate
Persistent negative alpha at every horizon. Consumer Defensive is the worst at −3.51% / 90d. Even committee-flagged buys in these sectors lose to SPY.
Don't trust the committee flag alone
Committee buys overall have NEGATIVE alpha (−0.25%). The signal only emerges at the $150k+ conviction threshold.
Methodology
How the numbers were produced.
- Source data
- Capitol Trades scraper, all STOCK Act buy & sell disclosures from Apr 2023 to Apr 2026.
- Universe
- 11,820 buy results + 12,767 sell results across 160+ politicians, with prices fetched from Yahoo Finance.
- Entry
- Open of the next trading day after filing date — not trade date — to model what a copy-trader could realistically achieve.
- Exit / hold periods
- Computed at 7, 14, 21, 30, 45, 60, 90 calendar-day marks using closing prices.
- Alpha
- Stock return minus SPY return over the identical calendar window.
- Sharpe
- Annualised:
(α / σ_α) × √(252 / hold). Risk-free rate 5%, capped at ±10 to prevent division-by-tiny artifacts.
Apply this on the live trades feed
Filter the politician trades feed by Senate · Democrat · ≥ $50k. Set alerts on the politicians named here. Watch the next qualifying signal in real time.