Members of Congress have reported 3,416 stock trades made so far in 2026. Eighty-three members made them, between January 1 and October 16, in the periodic transaction reports we could read by October 22. With the midterms on November 3, here is how the year looks: who traded, what they bought, who reported late, and how their purchases have done against the S&P 500.
It was also the year a stock-trading ban got through one chamber. In July the House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act, 232 to 198, which would stop members from buying individual stocks. On September 30 it got 53 votes in the Senate, short of the 60 needed to take it up. So the buying went on: 1,932 of this year's trades were purchases.
The data behind this piece
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The year in numbers
- 3,416 trades by 83 members: 1,932 purchases and 1,484 sales. Their combined disclosed value is between $45.6 million and $184.5 million.
- Three members made 53% of them: Rep. Gilbert Cisneros (795), Sen. Alan Armstrong (706) and Rep. April McClain Delaney (322). The ten most active made 78%.
- 786 trades (23%) were reported more than 45 days after the trade, the latest the STOCK Act allows. 701 of them are from Armstrong's first week in the Senate.
- Microsoft was the stock the most members bought: 13 members bought it, and 15 sold it.
- Only 39% of the purchases we could score have beaten the S&P 500 from the trade date to the October 26 close. The median purchase is 5.5 points behind.
- 8 of the 22 members with at least ten scored purchases are ahead of the index on average. Rep. Josh Gottheimer leads, 10.6 points ahead.
Who traded the most
| Member | Party, state | Chamber | Trades | Purchases | Sales | Disclosed value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gilbert Cisneros | D, California | House | 795 | 475 | 320 | $2.5M to $15.8M |
| Alan Armstrong | R, Oklahoma | Senate | 706 | 656 | 50 | $8.5M to $41.6M |
| April McClain Delaney | D, Maryland | House | 322 | 133 | 189 | $3.6M to $12.4M |
| David Taylor | R, Ohio | House | 160 | 92 | 68 | $0.3M to $2.6M |
| Kevin Hern | R, Oklahoma | House | 158 | 2 | 156 | $3.7M to $9.9M |
| John Boozman | R, Arkansas | Senate | 147 | 75 | 72 | $0.4M to $2.6M |
| Maria Elvira Salazar | R, Florida | House | 121 | 73 | 48 | $0.7M to $3.2M |
| Josh Gottheimer | D, New Jersey | House | 115 | 49 | 66 | $3.8M to $9.0M |
| Jared Moskowitz | D, Florida | House | 76 | 46 | 30 | $0.1M to $1.2M |
| Rich McCormick | R, Georgia | House | 63 | 18 | 45 | $0.1M to $0.9M |
Disclosed values are the sum of the value bands members report, since a periodic transaction report gives a range ("$1,001 to $15,000"), not a dollar amount.
The three at the top got there in different ways.
Cisneros trades almost every week, in small lots. His monthly reports now run to 50 or 60 lines each, and 711 of his 795 trades are in the lowest value band, $1,001 to $15,000. DoorDash appears most often (17 trades), followed by FirstService (12), W. R. Berkley (10) and Flex (10).
Armstrong's total comes almost entirely from one report. Oklahoma's governor appointed him on March 24 to the Senate seat Markwayne Mullin left to become Homeland Security secretary, and 701 of his trades are dated March 24 to 31, his first week in office. Nearly all were purchases, most of them in the lowest value band. That report was filed on July 21. It also held his largest trade, reported on time: a joint sale of $5 million to $25 million of stock in Williams Companies, the pipeline company he ran as chief executive from 2011 to 2025.
McClain Delaney is the only one of the three who sold more than she bought (189 sales, 133 purchases). Her most traded names were C.H. Robinson (21), Hubbell (17), Viking Holdings (15) and Service Corporation International (15).
Kevin Hern is the most one-sided trader on the list: 156 sales and two purchases. He is running for the Oklahoma Senate seat on November 3; under state law, Armstrong agreed not to run for it.
By party, Republicans made 1,834 trades and Democrats 1,573. Take out Armstrong and Cisneros and the gap narrows to 1,128 and 778. Republicans bought more than they sold (1,111 purchases, 723 sales). Democrats were nearly even (821 and 752). Sen. Angus King, an independent, reported nine sales and no purchases.
When they traded
The March spike is Armstrong's first week. Without him, March still has 241 purchases, the most of any month, and the timing was good: the S&P 500 ETF had its lowest close of the year on March 30. September and October look quiet only because many of those trades are not due yet. A trade made on October 1 can be reported as late as November 15.
What they bought
These are the stocks the most members bought this year, with the average return of those purchases to the October 26 close and the S&P 500 over the same days.
| Stock | Members buying | Members selling | Purchases scored | Average return since purchase | S&P 500, same days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | 13 | 15 | 39 | +29.9% | +9.8% |
| Meta Platforms | 10 | 6 | 13 | -0.7% | +8.0% |
| Apple | 8 | 15 | 15 | +25.3% | +8.8% |
| Micron Technology | 8 | 3 | 9 | +73.6% | +10.9% |
| Alphabet | 8 | 11 | 21 | -2.7% | +8.3% |
| Nvidia | 7 | 9 | 17 | +11.0% | +8.5% |
| Amazon | 7 | 8 | 13 | +11.5% | +12.5% |
| UnitedHealth Group | 7 | 5 | 10 | +38.0% | +12.5% |
| Advanced Micro Devices | 6 | 3 | 13 | +69.2% | +8.1% |
| Uber Technologies | 6 | 3 | 6 | -10.9% | +9.9% |
| IBM | 6 | 6 | 12 | -1.8% | +8.1% |
The popular names split into two groups. Micron and AMD have been very good buys this year, and so was Microsoft bought in March, when it traded near $357; it closed at $532.60 on October 26. Meta, Alphabet, IBM and Uber, bought by just as many members, are behind the index.
Microsoft and Apple were also the most sold stocks, by 15 members each. For many members, a big holding gets bought in one account and trimmed in another during the same year.
The biggest disclosed trades
Only seven trades this year carry a value band of more than $1 million.
| Date | Member | Trade | Value band | Share price since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 16 | Nancy Pelosi (spouse) | Bought 25,000 units of AllianceBernstein | $1M to $5M | -12.2% |
| Jan 23 | Sen. David McCormick (spouse) | Sold Goldman Sachs stock | $1M to $5M | -2.8% |
| Apr 30 | Chip Roy (spouse) | Restricted stock units in Atlas Energy Solutions, awarded as pay | $5M to $25M | -48.3% |
| May 29 | Nancy Pelosi (spouse) | Bought 200 Intel call options, $50 strike, March 2027 | $1M to $5M | Intel -21.1% |
| Jun 24 | Alan Armstrong (joint) | Sold Williams Companies stock | $5M to $25M | -5.4% |
| Jul 24 | Nancy Pelosi (spouse) | Bought 10,000 Bloom Energy shares | $1M to $5M | +10.3% |
| Jul 24 | Nancy Pelosi (spouse) | Bought 100 Bloom Energy call options, $100 strike, June 2027 | $1M to $5M | Bloom +10.3% |
Two of these are not market bets. Roy's report says the Atlas Energy units were "awarded as part of total comp package" for his spouse, so they are pay, not a purchase. And for options, the right column shows the move in the underlying stock, not the option's value.
Pelosi's spouse again bought long-dated call options, in July alongside shares. Intel has fallen from $114.68 to $90.47 since the May purchase. Bloom Energy is up since July, from $184.89 to $203.92. Armstrong's Williams sale has worked out so far: the stock has fallen from $75.87 to $71.75.
Who reported late
The STOCK Act gives members 30 days from learning of a trade to report it, and never more than 45 days from the trade itself. Of this year's 3,416 trades, 786 were reported after the 45th day.
Armstrong's first-week trades make up 701 of them, and they were already news: NOTUS and Oklahoma Watch reported in July that he disclosed about 700 trades worth $3.24 million to $16.05 million months after the deadline. Our count and value range match theirs. His trades from late March reached the public 113 to 119 days after they were made.
The other 85 late trades came from nine members:
| Member | Late trades | Days from trade to report | Report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gilbert Cisneros | 54 | 46 to 64 | Filed September 4 |
| Michael Rulli | 7 | 93 to 217 | Filed August 7 |
| John Boozman | 6 | 46 | Senate reports |
| Christian Menefee | 5 | 98 to 111 | Filed June 1 |
| Rick Allen | 5 | 50 to 51 | Filed June 5 |
| Laurel Lee | 4 | 53 to 69 | Filed July 19 and October 16 |
| Dan Crenshaw | 2 | 72 to 79 | Filed July 16 |
| Shri Thanedar | 1 | 216 | Filed August 13 |
| Tim Walberg | 1 | 113 | Filed June 3 |
The longest delays are small trades with one exception. Thanedar sold $100,001 to $250,000 of Apple on January 9 and reported it on August 13, in the same report as a sale of Strategy stock from October 2025. Rulli's August report covered trades going back to November 2024, including 2026 purchases of Eli Lilly, Microsoft and Palantir.
Cisneros is a different case. His late trades were made from July 2 to July 17, and the report gives August 14 as the date he was notified of them. He filed within 30 days of that notice. The 45-day outer limit still applies, and those trades were reported 46 to 64 days after they were made.
Amended reports can make a trade look late when it was not, because a correction filed months later repeats the original trade. We read each of the House reports above, and every late line is marked as a new transaction, not an amendment. Boozman's six trades were each reported on the 46th day.
How their purchases have done
To score a purchase, we compare the stock from its close on the trade date to its close on October 26 with the S&P 500 over the same days. Dividends and splits are included on both sides. This scores 1,512 of the 1,932 purchases. The rest are mostly funds, bonds and foreign shares traded over the counter, plus a few stocks we could not price.
The result is not flattering. The average scored purchase is up 8.9%, while the S&P 500 is up 11.2% over the same days. Only 39% of purchases are ahead of the index, and the median purchase trails it by 5.5 points. Weighting each trade by the middle of its value band gives nearly the same answer, 1.7 points behind.
Purchases made in April and May are ahead. Every other month is behind, including March, when members bought the most and the market was near its low for the year.
By member, among the 22 with at least ten scored purchases:
| Member | Scored purchases | Average return against the S&P 500 | Share of purchases ahead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Gottheimer | 46 | +10.6 points | 61% |
| Rich McCormick | 14 | +6.1 points | 64% |
| Cleo Fields | 34 | +4.2 points | 50% |
| Byron Donalds | 16 | +3.9 points | 50% |
| John Boozman | 33 | +3.8 points | 48% |
| Dan Newhouse | 12 | +1.7 points | 25% |
| Jared Moskowitz | 45 | +1.4 points | 38% |
| David Taylor | 92 | +1.1 points | 53% |
| Gilbert Cisneros | 450 | -0.1 points | 45% |
| Alan Armstrong | 339 | -4.0 points | 33% |
| Nancy Pelosi | 14 | -5.0 points | 36% |
| Markwayne Mullin | 31 | -13.2 points | 26% |
| April McClain Delaney | 133 | -13.6 points | 19% |
| Lisa McClain | 10 | -17.2 points | 30% |
The table shows the top eight and the bottom six. Some of the members ahead got there with a few big winners: Newhouse is 1.7 points ahead on average, but only a quarter of his purchases beat the index. Cisneros, with 450 scored purchases, is almost exactly level with the market, which is what you would expect from someone who buys a bit of almost everything.
Republicans' purchases were a little worse than Democrats' (37% and 41% ahead of the index), and both medians trail it by five to six points.
Sales tell a similar story. After a member sold, the stock did about as well as the market: on average 0.3 points behind it. One clear exception is Byron Donalds, whose 22 scored sales have fallen 27 points behind the index since, The Trade Desk among them, sold in January and March before falls of 66% and 47%. Kevin Hern is the opposite: the stocks he sold went on to beat the index by 4.5 points on average.
None of this is far from what we found over a longer period. In Do Congressional Stock Trades Beat the Market? we tested 17,859 disclosures from 2020 to 2025, and the typical purchase trailed the S&P 500 by 5.36 points after a year. In 2026, so far, it is 5.5 points.
How we built this
- Trades. Every transaction dated January 1 to October 16, 2026 in House and Senate periodic transaction reports we could read, as of October 22. Paper reports that were scanned add no trades, so members who file on paper are undercounted. Government and municipal bonds are not counted, so a member who now buys only bonds, as Rep. Rob Bresnahan's 2026 reports show, has no trades here.
- One line, one trade. A report line for a member and a line for their spouse in the same stock count as two trades, as the report lists them. Spouse, joint and dependent-child accounts are included, labelled where it matters.
- Party and state come from the member's term that covered the trade date. Four members' filings were not yet linked to their term records (Rich McCormick, Jerry Moran, Mitch McConnell and Angus King), so we matched them by hand to their official congressional records.
- Late means reported more than 45 days after the transaction date shown in the report. We read each late House report to rule out amendments.
- Scoring. The close on or before the trade date, against the close on October 26 (or the last trading day before it), using prices adjusted for splits and dividends, against the SPDR S&P 500 ETF over the same days. Options are scored by the underlying stock. Restricted stock awarded as pay is left out.
Limitations
- We don't know when members sold. The score assumes each purchase was held to October 26. Many were not, and a member who sold Micron in June did not earn its October price.
- Trade prices are not in the reports. We use the closing price on the trade date, which can be better or worse than the price the member got.
- Value bands are wide. A "$1,001 to $15,000" line could be either end, so dollar totals are ranges and dollar-weighted returns are approximate.
- Recent months are incomplete. Trades from September and October are still arriving.
- A few large traders dominate. Cisneros and Armstrong alone account for 44% of trades and 52% of scored purchases, so any average over all trades says a lot about them.
Conclusion
Congress traded a lot of stock in 2026, but most of it came from a handful of members. Three of them made more than half of all trades, and one senator's first week accounts for almost all the late reporting. The other 80 members made 1,593 trades between them.
The purchases have not beaten the market. Fewer than four in ten are ahead of the S&P 500, the same result we found over the previous five years. A few members are well ahead, but the typical purchase is not a signal worth copying.
Whether members should be allowed to make these trades at all is now up to the next Congress. Every member's trades, reports and timing are on their page on Equibles, and the Congress trading statistics page shows how many reports we have read for each chamber and year.