Democrats Beat GOP In 2024 Congressional Stock Trading

Jan 16, 2025

Dominic Dudley / Shutterstock.com

Unusual Whales released its Congress Trading Report for 2024 in early January, and the results were interesting, to say the least.

Members of Congress are required to file periodic transaction reports whenever they buy or sell stocks, bonds, and other securities, as explained in the UW report. Using these data, plus a handful of other key metrics and equations, UW is able to work out an estimated  end-of-year value for elected officials’ stock portfolio.

“We see that the portfolio value for all trading Democrats ballooned by +31% and beat the market. Meanwhile the Republican portfolio, still making gains, also beat the market slightly with 26%,” UW wrote of the 2024 results. ” The Dems generally won this year due to their big tech holdings, whereas Republicans held (for the most part) financials and commodities. There are exceptions to this, as we will see below.”

@unusual_whales / unusualwhales.com

Who Ranked Highly?

Republican North Carolina Rep. David Rouzer who “mainly holds ETFs” had the great return on his portfolio “mainly holding NVDA, MA, V, and the JETS ETF (as well as a few smaller names). He made these buys years ago, but he is not an active trader. As such, he may have the best performance in his portfolio among Congress, but he is not the most active.”

Members such as California Democratic Nancy Pelosi, Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw were far more active and performed better as a result, noted UW. The data shared by the site is not an exact science, and are far more conservative in their estimates than the actual figures. (RELATED: Schumer Blames Voters For Not Realizing ‘How Much’ Dems Did)

“Most members are invested heavily in big tech and big financials,” writes UW. “They have usually opened those positions years ago, and have outpaced the average S&P return. However, we are only interested in perceived 2024 Jan 1 to Dec 31 2024 return on active positions. As a result, our returns may actually undervalue a Congressional stock return by a significant amount. We are aware of this.”

Why Did Congress Do So Well In 2024?

Congress outperformed in 2024 because of heavy investments in Big Tech. Check out the charts below for a better understanding of Republicans vs. Democrats:

@unusual_whales / unusualwhales.com

UW also noted Pelosi’s “cult-like” portfolio, cultivated by her husband, Paul. Their investments include Auberge du Soleil hotel, as well as AI company Databricks, as well as many others that’ve netted quite the fortune for the Pelosi family.

Other trades of note included Crenshaw’s $15,000 purchase in Wynn Resorts, six days after Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta purchased 6.1% of the company. Fertitta’s purchase information was not publicly available until after Crenshaw’s purchase. You can read about the other “unusual” trades in the report, most of which related to investments in areas where elected officials oversee policy.

Why Should You Care?

“The idea of lawmakers trading stocks while legislating is inherently problematic. Congress members shape policies that can directly impact markets. Whether or not they act on insider knowledge, the appearance of potential abuse undermines public trust,” UW wrote in their analysis. How do you feel about the fact that Congress has outperformed the markets for at least the last five years?

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