What disclosure data cannot tell you
Public filings show that a trade happened, roughly how large it was and when it was reported. They do not show why the person traded, what they knew, whether they made money, or what else they own, and nothing on this site is a recommendation to buy or sell.
In brief
- Filings are late by design: up to 45 days for Congress, two business days for insiders.
- Congressional amounts are ranges; totals built from them are estimates.
- No filing states a reason or what the filer knew.
- Coverage is not complete: scanned filings wait to be read, and insiders are a tracked set.
- Past trades do not predict future prices.
Can a filing tell me why someone traded?
No. A filing records a transaction. It has no field for a reason, and the people who file are not asked for one. A member of Congress may not even have placed the trade; a spouse or an adviser may have.
It is tempting to line a trade up with later news and infer knowledge. Sometimes that inference will be right. A filing cannot confirm it, and with hundreds of people making thousands of trades, some will precede good or bad news by chance. This site shows the record and leaves the inference out.
How old is the information by the time I see it?
Older than it looks. A member of Congress may report up to 45 days after trading, and some report later still. A company insider reports within two business days. So a congressional purchase you read about today may be six weeks old, and the price has moved since.
Anyone hoping to copy a trade is acting on stale information by construction. Whether that has worked in the past is argued over at length; this site does not test it and makes no claim either way.
How exact are the dollar figures?
For company insiders, exact: shares times price, as filed. For Congress, not exact at all: each trade is a range whose top can be fifteen times its bottom, and the map and charts here use the top (see amount ranges). A member's "total traded" is an upper estimate.
The site also applies a small number of written rules when adding trades up: options are kept out of buy and sell totals, a trade reported on several filings is counted once, and a few filings with an obvious error in the price box are corrected for display. Each is described in the methodology, and the underlying filings are never altered.
Is every trade here?
No, and the gaps are specific:
- Scanned and paper filings from Congress cannot be read automatically and wait for a person to transcribe them (83 at present).
- Senate reports are added in batches, not daily.
- Company insiders are covered for a tracked set of 1,265 stocks, not the whole market.
- Assets without a ticker, such as bonds and private funds, appear in tables but not on the map.
- Exempt holdings, including broad mutual funds and index funds, are never reported by members at all.
The coverage section of the methodology gives current counts for each source.
Can I tell whether someone made money?
Not from these filings. Congressional reports give no price and no share count. Insider reports give a price for each trade but not the cost of shares received as pay, and a sale is rarely matched to a particular purchase. This site carries no licensed price history, so it does not calculate returns for anyone.
Is any of this investment advice?
No. Spot the Money republishes public records and adds them up by stated rules. It does not recommend, rank or score trades, does not suggest copying anyone, and does not execute trades. The terms of use say the same in full. If you are making a financial decision, check the original filing, which every row links to, and consider speaking to a licensed adviser.
What if something here is wrong?
Tell us. A figure that does not match its source filing is an error and will be fixed and logged; the corrections page explains how to report it. If the filing itself is wrong, only the person who filed it can amend it, and the amended version replaces the original here on the next update.
Questions and answers
Does a congressional stock trade prove insider trading?
No. A filing shows that a trade happened and when it was reported. It does not show what the member knew or why they traded.
Is Spot the Money investment advice?
No. The site republishes public records and totals them by stated rules. It makes no recommendations and does not execute trades.
Can I see how much profit a member of Congress made on a trade?
No. Congressional reports give a dollar range and a date, with no price or share count, so profit cannot be calculated from them.
Is every congressional and insider trade on the site?
No. Scanned filings wait to be read by hand, Senate reports arrive in batches, insider filings are covered for a tracked set of stocks, and assets without a ticker are not on the map.
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