Methodology and limits
Everything here is reconstructed from public filings. Read this before you take any number on the site seriously.
These returns are estimates, not real results. Congressional filings report trade sizes as broad dollar ranges (for example $1,001–$15,000), and those ranges get much wider for large trades. Every figure here uses the midpoint of the disclosed range, so an individual number can be off by a wide margin. Treat rankings as rough signal, never as precise performance. How this is calculated
Why trade sizes are only estimates
Under the STOCK Act, members of Congress report each transaction inside a dollar bracket rather than an exact amount: $1,001–$15,000, $15,001–$50,000, and so on. The brackets get dramatically wider at the top end — a single filing can say $5,000,001–$25,000,000.
Capitol Signal uses the midpoint of each bracket as the assumed position size. For a $1,001–$15,000 trade that means $8,000.50. The true figure can sit anywhere in the range, so any individual position — and any return weighted by position size — carries real error. The wider the bracket, the larger the possible error.
How an estimated return is computed
For each disclosed trade with a recognisable ticker, we take the closing price on or before the transaction date as the entry, and the closing price on or before the end of the selected window as the exit. A purchase earns the price change; a sale is treated as the inverse, since selling ahead of a decline is a good call.
A member's headline number is the average of those per-trade returns weighted by the estimated midpoint dollar size. It is not a portfolio return, not time-weighted, and does not account for how long a position was actually held.
What is not accounted for
- The 45-day legal disclosure delay — nobody could have traded on this in real time.
- Exact execution prices, intraday timing, partial fills and position sizing.
- Options, bonds, funds and assets without a clean, priceable ticker symbol.
- Taxes, fees, dividends, splits beyond what the price source adjusts for.
- Trades disclosed by spouses or dependents versus the member personally.
- Filing errors, amended filings and names that fail to match the roster.
Data sources
- Senate periodic transaction reports, sourced from public Senate EFD mirrors.
- House periodic transaction reports, sourced from public House Stock Watcher data.
- Party, state and chamber from the public congress-legislators roster.
- Daily closing prices from free public end-of-day price feeds.
- Trade data refreshes on a daily batch; disclosures are delayed by law anyway.
What this tool is not
Capitol Signal is a learning and paper-research tool. There is no brokerage connection, no order routing, no real money, and there never will be. Nothing here is investment advice, and a high rank is not evidence of wrongdoing or of skill.