How to follow members, insiders and stocks
Press Follow on any member, insider, stock or company page and sign in with an emailed code or a Google, Microsoft or GitHub account; the account is free. Your watchlist page then lists every trade disclosed by what you follow, newest first, with the ones that arrived since your last visit marked New.
In brief
- Follow buttons are on every member, insider, stock and company page.
- An account is free and needs only an email address; there is no password.
- A trade appears when it is disclosed: up to 45 days after the trade for Congress, usually within days for insiders.
- Lists are private until you share one; a shared list is visible to anyone with its link.
- You can delete your account and everything in it from the watchlist page.
How do I follow someone?
Open the page of the member of Congress, corporate insider, stock or company you want to keep an eye on and press Follow beside the name. If you are not signed in, the site takes you to the sign-in page and brings you back to the same page, where the follow is completed for you. Press the button again (it then reads Following) to stop following.
Following a stock covers every trade in that ticker, by members of Congress and by insiders. Following a company covers all of its listed share classes. Following a person covers every trade they report, whatever the stock. Use the search box or the Congress, Insiders and Stocks lists to find a page.
What does the watchlist page show?
Your watchlist starts with the trades disclosed by what you follow since you last opened it, each marked New, then the earlier trades from the last twelve months. Each row gives the date the trade was disclosed, who filed it, what it was, the stock, its size as filed and a link to the original filing. The bookmark icon at the top of every page shows how many new trades are waiting.
Under Your lists, each page you follow has its own line. A stock or a company shows a small three-month price chart from TradingView beside Who traded it, last 90 days: the corporate insiders and members of Congress who disclosed trades in it in that window, with what each bought or sold and when. A member of Congress or an insider shows bars of their trades disclosed per month over the last year (buys above the line, sales below), their latest trade, their totals for the last 90 days and the tickers they traded. These figures come from the same calculations as the full pages and are refreshed each time the site is updated; the price charts are TradingView's, delayed, and the site stores no prices.
In the list of trades, sizes are shown as filed: a dollar range for Congress (see amount ranges) and shares at a price for insiders. The stock and person pages, and the figures beside each followed page, apply the site's rules for options and joint filings; the trade list does not, so check the full page before adding up its rows.
A trade appears when it becomes public, not when it happened. Members of Congress have up to 45 days to report, so a trade can arrive weeks after its date; insider Form 4 filings are due within two business days. See late disclosures.
Can I keep more than one list?
Yes. Everything you follow starts on My watchlist. On the watchlist page you can create more lists (up to 20, each with up to 500 pages), rename them, move a page from one list to another and delete lists you no longer need. Your first list cannot be deleted. The trades section always covers every list together.
How do I share a list?
Press Share with a link on a list. Anyone with the link can see the list's name, the pages on it and their trades disclosed in the last 90 days; they never see your email address. Someone who is signed in can press Copy to my watchlist to start their own copy. Press Stop sharing and the link stops working at once. A shared list shows what someone chose to follow; it is not a recommendation.
What does an account keep, and how do I delete it?
Your email address, the pages you follow, your lists and when you last opened the watchlist page, so the site can mark what is new. Sign-in is handled by WorkOS; the site never sees a password. The details are in the privacy policy. To leave, press Delete my account on the watchlist page: the account, its lists and the sign-in are removed straight away.
Email alerts are not offered yet. When they are, they will be something you switch on yourself, with an unsubscribe link in every message.
Questions and answers
Does a Spot the Money account cost anything?
No. Accounts and watchlists are free, and the site never asks for a payment.
How quickly does a new trade show up on my watchlist?
As soon as the site has loaded the filing, usually within a day of it becoming public. Members of Congress can report up to 45 days after a trade, so the trade itself may be weeks old.
Can other people see what I follow?
Only if you share a list, and then only that list: its name, the pages on it and their recent trades. Your email address is never shown.
Where do the price charts on my watchlist come from?
From TradingView: the same free widget as on each stock page, in a three-month view. Prices there are delayed, not real-time. Spot the Money stores no prices, and the trade figures beside each chart come from government filings, not from the chart.
Will I get email alerts?
Not yet. New trades appear on your watchlist page and as a count on the bookmark icon. Email alerts, when added, will be opt-in.
See it on this site
Related guides
Sources
Not investment advice. This guide explains public records and how this site presents them. It makes no recommendation to buy or sell anything. All guides · All questions · Report an error