A free, step-by-step series on using political signals in stock research. Learn to read STOCK Act disclosures, track Senate and House trades, follow committee chairs, decode Senate lobbying records, and turn USA Spending federal contract data into investable signal — all on real OmniFolio tools.
Most political data is noise. The skill is layering trades, lobbying, and contracts to find the small overlap that actually carries signal.
STOCK Act, LDA, USA Spending
Every congressional trade, every lobbying engagement, and every federal contract is in a public database. The guides walk you through each one so you can read them yourself.
Committee chairs, lobbyists, contractors
Most political data is noise. The real signal lives in committee-relevant trades, repeat lobbying clients, and contractors winning recurring federal awards.
Weekly political screen
Political data only works as a research input if you have a repeatable workflow. The advanced guides build a weekly screen that overlays trades, lobbying, and contracts.
Twelve focused guides — from STOCK Act basics to a weekly political screen. Sorted by skill level and reading time.
What is the STOCK Act?
Disclosure law · 2012
A primer on the STOCK Act — why members of Congress have to disclose trades, what they have to file, and the 45-day reporting window.
Read a Periodic Transaction Report
PTR · House & Senate
Walk through a real PTR filing line by line — transaction date, asset, range, and what each field actually means.
House vs Senate disclosures
Different forms · Same law
How House and Senate disclosure systems differ in formatting, frequency, and granularity — and what that means for your workflow.
Use the Congress Tracker tool
All members · One feed
Walk through the Congress Tracker — every disclosed trade, sortable by member, party, ticker, and committee.
Follow committee chairs
Where the real signal lives
Trades from members on the relevant committee (banking, defense, energy, healthcare) carry more weight than trades from non-committee members.
Track high-volume traders
Who actually trades a lot
A small handful of members do the vast majority of the trading. Find them, understand their style, and decide which ones are worth following.
Spouse & dependent trades
“Self,” “spouse,” “joint”
Many disclosed trades are filed under spouse or dependent accounts. Why that matters — and how it changes the read on intent.
Decode Senate lobbying records
LDA filings · Issue codes
Use Senate lobbying disclosures to see who is paying which firms to lobby on which issues — a leading indicator for sector regulation.
Use the Senate Lobbying tool
Quarterly · Issue · Client
Walk through the Senate Lobbying tool — quarterly spend, issue codes, and the firms doing the lobbying for each client.
Read a USA Spending contract
Federal contracts · Recipients
How to use USA Spending to find who is winning federal contracts — defense, IT, healthcare, infrastructure — and turn that into a watchlist.
Combine trades + lobbying + contracts
The political-overlay portfolio
Layer congressional trades on top of lobbying spend and federal contract awards. Where all three line up is where the strongest political signal lives.
Build a weekly political screen
Repeatable workflow
A weekly screen — committee-relevant trades + new lobbying clients + fresh contract awards — that turns the firehose into a focused shortlist.
All examples cite official disclosures — House Clerk, Senate Office of Public Records, Senate LDA, and USA Spending. Educational content only.
Pre-sequenced playlists for political intelligence — pick a track and read straight through.
Beginner: How the STOCK Act actually works
~25 min · 3 guides
Beginner: Read a PTR filing cold
~20 min · 2 guides
Intermediate: Committee chairs & high-volume traders
~30 min · 3 guides
Intermediate: Senate lobbying workflow
~30 min · 3 guides
Intermediate: USA Spending contract analysis
~25 min · 2 guides
Advanced: Build a weekly political screen
~45 min · 4 guides
After working through this category, the standard congress-trading questions stop feeling intimidating.
Built on official government disclosures, wired into the platform, and strictly educational.
Every example cites the original House Clerk, Senate Office of Public Records, Senate LDA, or USA Spending filing — never a third-party scrape.
Each guide ends with a working link into the OmniFolio tool that runs the workflow — Congress Tracker, Senate Lobbying, and USA Spending.
These are research workflows for fully public, legally-disclosed political activity. Nothing here is investment advice — or commentary on the politics themselves.
Free to read. From your first PTR to a weekly political screen — every guide is built on real OmniFolio tools.