The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, or STOCK Act, became law in the wake of media reports critical of stock trading by members of the U.S. Congress during the 2008 global financial crisis and the legislative debate on the Affordable 🤪Care Act in 2009 to 📖2010.

The STOCK Act significantly expanded the reporting requirements for securities transactions by members of Congress and senior federal officials. It also made clear that members of Congress are subject to U.S. securities laws banning insider trading.

The Act gained renewed attention in 2025 after President Trump's sudden reversal of his 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:sweeping tariff policies triggered extraordinary market gains, prompting allegations on social media that some officials with advance knowledge had made suspiciously timed trades.

What Is the STOCK Act?

The STOCK Act was passed in 2012 with strong bipartisan support. It followed a November 2011 60 Minutes report and other media coverage highlighting stock trading by members of Congress, leading to broad concerns that they weren't subject to laws barring trading on 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:material nonpublic information received in the course of official duties. The ACT had four main goals:

1. Affirm that securities laws, especially those related to trading on material nonpublic information, apply to members of Congress and high-level members of the executive branch.
2. Improve the public's trust in Congress.
3. Make Congressional trading more transparent.
4. Punish those who violate the relevant securities laws related to insider trading.

The STOCK Act requires those in Congress (as well as certain high-ranking members of the executive branch) to make public (including online) all securities transactions with a value above $1,000 within 30 days of receiving notice of the transaction and within 45 days of the transaction date. In most cases, the requirements also apply to trades by spouses and dependent children. Under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, securities transactions by members of Congress and senior executive branch officials were instead to be reported annually.

Critiques and Limitations of the STOCK Act

While the STOCK Act passed by overwhelming margins, critics charge that compliance with its reporting requirements has been spotty and the penalties for violating it too modest. For example, in 2023, Business Insider identified 78 members of Congress who violated the law. No public information, it found, was available on whether they'd been assessed the initial $200 fine for reporting violations.

While the STOCK Act affirmed that insider trading by those in Congress and high-ranking members of the executive branch is a crime, no charges have ever been brought under the law. New York Republican Chris Collins resigned from Congress in 2019 just before pleading guilty to insider trading for his role as a board member and significant shareholder of an Australian biotechnology company.

Proving that information acquired from work in Congress is material to a particular stock trade can be difficult. In addition, the U.S. Constitution's "speech and debate" clause shields members of Congress from official questioning elsewhere about their legislative work. The Supreme Court has interpreted the clause broadly to bar subpoenas and search warrants related to congressional business, with the notable and limited exception of bribery investigations.

Not surprisingly, then, the increased reporting of trading transactions by officials complying with the act has deepened public cynicism about their perceived conflicts of interest.

Congressional Trading Controversies

• Congressional trades following meetings with senior government officials during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis have been widely reported. Following the 60 Minutes report in 2011, the Office of Congressional Ethics investigated the frequent trading during the crisis by House Financial Services Committee Chair Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican. The probe cleared Bachus months later.
• Georgia Republican Tom Price made trades worth more than $300,000 in healthcare stocks between 2012 and 2016, sometimes while pursuing legislation material to their prospects. Following the disclosure, he was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2017.
• Georgia Republican Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) and chair of the New York Stock Exchange, initially disclosed selling between $1.275 million and $3.1 million of stock in the three weeks following a closed-door briefing. Loeffler and Sprecher later reported additional stock sales during the period, including Intercontinental Exchange stock worth $18.7 million.
• Several U.S. senators traded heavily shortly after receiving a confidential COVID-19 briefing in January 2020. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, sold between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his stock holdings in 33 separate transactions on Feb. 13. Burr, one of the three senators to vote against the STOCK Act, also sold almost $47,000 of a Dutch fertilizer stock in 2018 shortly before it declined 40%. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and her husband sold $1.5 million to $6 million in shares of a California biotech company in transactions split between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18 in 2020. Meanwhile, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe sold up to $400,000 in stock on Jan. 27, 2020. The DOJ ended probes into the trading by Inhofe, Feinstein, Loeffler, and their spouses in May 2020.
• In the summer of 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) closed its probe into the trading of the shares of Cardlytics Inc. (CDLX) by David Perdue, a Republican Senator from Georgia who previously served on the company's board. Perdue had drawn scrutiny by reporting 194 separate securities transactions for February and March 2020. The DOJ dropped the probe into his trading in January 2021. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did so, too, two years later.
• In April 2025, financial disclosures revealed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene made significant stock purchases on April 8 and 9, 2025, investing between $21,000 and $315,000 across 17 companies, including major firms like Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Tesla, Inc. (TSLA). These transactions occurred just before the market surged after the Trump administration paused previously announced tariffs, prompting questions about the timing and potential access to nonpublic information. Greene said that her investments are managed by a financial advisor under a fiduciary agreement and are transparently reported.​

The 2025 Tariff Controversy and Renewed Scrutiny෴

In April 2025, concerns about insider trading resurfaced dramatically when President Trump suddenly paused most of his sweeping tariffs after previously insisting they were nonnegotiable. Hours before announcing this change, Trump posted on Truth Social: "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" The stock market later surged, with the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:S&P 500 Index rising by almost 10% and the Nasdaq experiencing extraordinary intraday gains.

Data shows that trading volume spiked in bullish call options on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), particularly in contracts that would profit if the index price rose significantly that day. Notably, several minutes before Trump's announcement, unidentified traders bought many such contracts, raising suspicions of potential insider trading.

This prompted legislators, such as ♏Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to urge colleagues who had purchased stocks in the p💎revious days to disclose their trades immediately rather than waiting for a May 15, 2025, deadline.

"Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now. I've been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor," Ocasio-Cortez said in a social media post, adding, "It's time to ban insider trading in Congress."

Later, all Democrats on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs called for the SEC to investigate any relevant trades. Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that House Democrats would also launch investigations into possible stock manipulation related to these events.

Ongoing Efforts to Stem Congressional Trading

Several new bills pending in the House and Senate would bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks. Although they differ in details, many would force members of Congress to place their investments in a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:blind trust; only 2% now do so.

Proposals for changes to the STOCK Act include the Ban Conflicted Trading Act (cosponsored in the House by New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, among others); the TRUST in Congress Act, also in the House; the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act in the Senate; and the Bipartisan Ban on Congressional Stock Ownership Act, also in the Senate.

The Bottom Line

The STOCK Act of 2012 was designed to provide greater transparency about Congressional holdings of stocks and build greater trust that those who represent us aren't using the information they gain in office to enrich themselves. On the latter count, the Act has largely failed. While the public overwhelmingly supports banning Congressional stock trading altogether, only 5% of those in Congress don't own stock or widely held investment funds.