The STOCK Act in 2026

What the law says

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 — the STOCK Act — requires every member of Congress, their senior staff, and certain executive-branch officials to publicly disclose securities transactions worth more than $1,000. The disclosure has to happen within 45 days of the trade.

Filings are called PTRs: Periodic Transaction Reports. The House Clerk and the Senate Office of Public Records each maintain a searchable archive; CatalystView pulls from both regularly.

What's in a PTR

• Filer name and chamber — the senator or representative who traded, plus committee assignments if you cross-reference public records.
• Transaction date and disclosure date — the gap is the “filing delay.” Over 45 days is technically a violation, though enforcement is weak.
• Asset — the ticker, or sometimes just a description. PTRs are notorious for blurry tickers, so we normalise to a clean symbol where possible.
• Transaction type — purchase, sale, exchange, or partial sale.
• Amount range — not a dollar figure, just a bucket ($1,001–$15,000, $15,001–$50,000, and so on). This is the law's largest blind spot.

The loopholes that still exist in 2026

• Amount ranges hide size. A “$100K–$250K” trade could be anything in that window. We always show the range, never a midpoint guess.
• Spouses and dependents count, but enforcement is uneven. Trades are reported, labelled “filer,” “spouse,” “dependent,” or “joint.”
• Tickers get blurred. Many PTRs disclose only a fund name, not a tradable ticker. We tag these and exclude them from per-stock stats.
• Fines are low. The standard fine for a late PTR is $200 — and some members have paid it more than once.

How to read a PTR usefully

On a per-member basis, look for two things:

• Sector alignment with committee assignments. A Senate Armed Services member with a stack of defense-contractor trades is a different signal from someone whose holdings span the S&P 500.
• Filing-delay habits. A member who consistently files at day 44 is telling you something about how seriously they take the disclosure regime.