Which Members of Congress Actually Beat the Market
Plenty of trackers will show you what members of Congress are buying and selling. Far fewer answer the question that actually matters: are any of them good at it?
Coldpine prices every disclosed purchase against the S&P 500 over the 90 days that follow, point-in-time, and measures the alpha: how much the trade beat (or trailed) simply buying the index. The honest headline is that beating the market is rare, even in Congress.
Of the 71 members with enough priced purchases to measure, only 34 show positive average alpha vs the S&P. Trading a lot is not the same as trading well.
For each disclosed purchase, we take the stock’s return over the next 90 days and subtract SPY’s return over the exact same window. The average of those differences is the member’s 90-day alpha. We only include members with at least 5 priced purchases that have a full 90-day window. This is a point-in-time measure of disclosed buys, not realized profit-and-loss or current holdings, and it is informational, not investment advice.
| # | Member | Buys | Beat SPY | Avg alpha (90d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Fetterman Senate · PA · D | 7 | 43.0% | +25.5% |
| 2 | Mark Green House · TN · D | 10 | 80.0% | +15.5% |
| 3 | Kelly Louise Morrison House · MN · D | 10 | 90.0% | +15.2% |
| 4 | Debbie Wasserman Schultz House · FL · D | 10 | 70.0% | +12.4% |
| 5 | Morgan McGarvey House · KY · D | 9 | 67.0% | +12.3% |
| 6 | Thomas H. Kean House · NJ · R | 6 | 50.0% | +7.6% |
| 7 | Keith Alan Self House · TX · R | 6 | 67.0% | +6.6% |
| 8 | Markwayne Mullin Senate · OK · R | 62 | 58.0% | +6.1% |
| 9 | Dwight Evans House · PA · D | 11 | 82.0% | +5.8% |
| 10 | Doug Lamborn House · CO · R | 14 | 79.0% | +5.1% |
| 11 | Pete Sessions House · TX · R | 16 | 56.0% | +5.0% |
| 12 | Lisa McClain House · MI · R | 50 | 38.0% | +4.4% |
| 13 | Julie Johnson House · TX · D | 72 | 56.0% | +3.7% |
| 14 | Tim Moore House · NC · R | 172 | 51.0% | +3.1% |
| 15 | Tony Wied House · WI · R | 27 | 44.0% | +2.2% |
What the data shows
John Fetterman tops the list, with disclosed purchases that beat the S&P by an average of +25.5% over 90 days, beating the index on 43.0% of them. But the more important pattern is the tail: most members cluster near zero or negative. A name near the top of the most-active list is usually nowhere near the top of this one. Volume of trading tells you almost nothing about skill.
That gap, between who trades the most and who actually trades well, is the entire point of Coldpine. Anyone can show you the feed. We tell you which of it is worth paying attention to.
Every member’s full track record, every trade scored, and the complete return-vs-S&P table are inside Coldpine.
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Coldpine is a publisher of intelligence on public Congressional disclosures. Alpha is a point-in-time measure of disclosed purchases vs the S&P 500, not realized profit-and-loss, current holdings, or a prediction of future returns. This is informational only, not investment advice, and not a suggestion to buy, sell, or copy anyone’s trades.