The 10 Stocks Congress Trades Most
Based on 103,342 deduplicated STOCK Act disclosures filed between 2012 and 2026, these are the 10 most-traded tickers in Congress. Big Tech still dominates — six of the top 10 are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA and Alphabet — but AT&T, Disney, UnitedHealth and JPMorgan round out the list. Microsoft leads with 1,173 trades; Apple is traded by the most individual politicians (142 of 348 active traders). To see exactly which members of Congress own a given stock, search any ticker.
MSFT
AAPL
AMZN
META
NVDA
GOOGL
T
DIS
UNH
JPM
Of the 10 most-traded stocks in Congress, six are Big Tech platforms — Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA and Alphabet — most of them under active antitrust review by the DOJ, FTC, and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust.
Top 50 Most Traded Stocks by Congress
Below: the complete top-50 ranking with sector, trade count, politician count, and buy/sell ratio. Look up any ticker for the full trade-by-trade history, signal scores, and politician breakdown.
| # | Ticker | Company | Sector | Trades | Politicians | Buy/Sell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MSFT | Microsoft | Technology | 1,173 | 131 | 0.9x |
| 2 | AAPL | Apple | Technology | 1,089 | 142 | 0.7x |
| 3 | AMZN | Amazon | Consumer | 704 | 114 | 1.3x |
| 4 | META | Meta Platforms | Technology | 651 | 83 | 0.9x |
| 5 | NVDA | NVIDIA | Technology | 591 | 70 | 1.1x |
| 6 | GOOGL | Alphabet | Technology | 502 | 84 | 0.9x |
| 7 | T | AT&T | Communications | 475 | 81 | 1.0x |
| 8 | DIS | Walt Disney | Communications | 465 | 83 | 1.0x |
| 9 | UNH | UnitedHealth Group | Healthcare | 453 | 77 | 0.9x |
| 10 | JPM | JPMorgan Chase | Finance | 437 | 91 | 1.1x |
| 11 | PFE | Pfizer | Healthcare | 433 | 69 | 0.8x |
| 12 | JNJ | Johnson & Johnson | Healthcare | 428 | 85 | 1.2x |
| 13 | WFC | Wells Fargo | Finance | 420 | 59 | 0.9x |
| 14 | BAC | Bank of America | Finance | 412 | 60 | 0.8x |
| 15 | V | Visa | Finance | 411 | 72 | 1.0x |
| 16 | PG | Procter & Gamble | Consumer | 395 | 85 | 1.2x |
| 17 | MRK | Merck | Healthcare | 388 | 65 | 0.9x |
| 18 | INTC | Intel | Technology | 388 | 67 | 0.9x |
| 19 | BRK.B | Berkshire Hathaway | Finance | 387 | 61 | 1.2x |
| 20 | PYPL | PayPal | Finance | 384 | 51 | 0.7x |
| 21 | XOM | Exxon Mobil | Energy | 376 | 75 | 0.8x |
| 22 | NFLX | Netflix | Communications | 375 | 46 | 0.9x |
| 23 | SBUX | Starbucks | Consumer | 374 | 58 | 0.9x |
| 24 | GOOG | Alphabet (Class C) | Technology | 365 | 66 | 0.9x |
| 25 | ACN | Accenture | Technology | 363 | 49 | 1.0x |
| 26 | HD | Home Depot | Consumer | 363 | 66 | 1.5x |
| 27 | VZ | Verizon | Communications | 348 | 76 | 0.9x |
| 28 | PEP | PepsiCo | Consumer | 342 | 74 | 0.9x |
| 29 | CVS | CVS Health | Healthcare | 341 | 60 | 0.8x |
| 30 | CMCSA | Comcast | Communications | 340 | 60 | 0.8x |
| 31 | C | Citigroup | Finance | 335 | 45 | 1.0x |
| 32 | CVX | Chevron | Energy | 333 | 73 | 0.7x |
| 33 | TSLA | Tesla | Technology | 328 | 46 | 1.0x |
| 34 | ADBE | Adobe | Technology | 317 | 38 | 0.9x |
| 35 | IBM | IBM | Technology | 315 | 53 | 1.2x |
| 36 | GE | GE Aerospace | Industrials | 311 | 73 | 0.6x |
| 37 | QCOM | Qualcomm | Technology | 308 | 58 | 0.7x |
| 38 | COST | Costco | Consumer | 292 | 59 | 1.2x |
| 39 | UPS | United Parcel Service | Industrials | 292 | 48 | 0.9x |
| 40 | TXN | Texas Instruments | Technology | 290 | 44 | 1.3x |
| 41 | KO | Coca-Cola | Consumer | 286 | 55 | 1.1x |
| 42 | ABT | Abbott Laboratories | Healthcare | 281 | 53 | 1.0x |
| 43 | ORCL | Oracle | Technology | 278 | 42 | 0.7x |
| 44 | FDX | FedEx | Industrials | 272 | 36 | 1.2x |
| 45 | WMT | Walmart | Consumer | 265 | 62 | 1.0x |
| 46 | TMO | Thermo Fisher | Healthcare | 265 | 46 | 1.0x |
| 47 | ABBV | AbbVie | Healthcare | 263 | 55 | 1.1x |
| 48 | MA | Mastercard | Finance | 260 | 47 | 1.0x |
| 49 | SLB | SLB (Schlumberger) | Energy | 260 | 51 | 0.8x |
| 50 | CSCO | Cisco Systems | Communications | 258 | 66 | 0.8x |
What Congress Actually Owns — Not Just What It Trades
Trading volume and ownership are two different signals. The ranking above is sorted by how often Congress trades a stock. This one is sorted by how many members actually hold it — summed from the most recent Personal Financial Disclosure of every member whose annual filing we’ve parsed (489 members, 197,495 asset lines, 2018–2025). The two lists rhyme at the very top — nearly everyone owns Apple and Microsoft — but they pull apart fast, and the gap is where the story is.
| # | Ticker | Held by (members) | Est. value held | Also traded by | Trades |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AAPLApple Inc. | 54 | $22.3M | 142 | 1,089 |
| 2 | MSFTMicrosoft Corp | 49 | $37.4M | 131 | 1,173 |
| 3 | AMZNAmazon.com | 35 | $23.7M | 114 | 704 |
| 4 | PGProcter & Gamble | 30 | $2.8M | 85 | 395 |
| 5 | VOOVanguard S&P 500 ETF | 28 | $8.2M | 8 | 13buy & hold |
| 6 | TAT&T Inc. | 28 | $1.7M | 81 | 475 |
| 7 | GOOGLAlphabet Inc. | 27 | $20.3M | 84 | 500 |
| 8 | JPMJPMorgan Chase | 27 | $1.9M | 91 | 437 |
| 9 | NVDANVIDIA Corp | 26 | $17.6M | 70 | 591 |
| 10 | VVisa Inc. | 25 | $15.9M | 72 | 411 |
| 11 | JNJJohnson & Johnson | 24 | $2.8M | 85 | 428 |
| 12 | VEAVanguard Developed Mkts ETF | 22 | $1.4M | 13 | 55buy & hold |
The tell is in the index funds. Apple and Microsoft top both lists — Congress owns them and churns them. But the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is held by 28 members and traded just 13 times in 14 years; the developed-markets ETF (VEA) is held by 22 and barely moved. That’s the line between parked wealth — broad index funds members buy and forget — and the single-name megacaps they actively trade around earnings, antitrust headlines, and committee calendars. The names that show up high on both lists are the ones worth watching.
Sector Breakdown: Where Congress Puts Its Money
Technology leads. Barely. 14,822 deduplicated trades since 2012, against Consumer’s 14,689. That is a gap of 133 trades out of 82,250, which is not a lead. It is a tie, and it is fragile: file one borderline industry differently — put Cisco and Motorola under Communications instead of Technology — and Consumer takes the top slot outright.
Finance is a clear third at 12,695, then Industrials & Defense (10,513) and Healthcare (10,400). So “Congress trades tech” is half right and mostly misleading. The second-largest bloc in these portfolios is not a frontier sector at all. It is Amazon (704 deduplicated trades), Starbucks (375), Home Depot (365) and Chipotle (135) — the ordinary consumer economy. Congress files about as many retail and restaurant trades as it does chip and cloud trades.
Why our sector bars disagree with other trackers. We keep two sector views of every company, because two different questions need them. The market view asks what business this is, and it builds the bars above. The jurisdiction view asks which committee regulates it, and it powers our conflict scoring. They disagree on purpose: under the jurisdiction view Leidos is a defense company rather than an IT services firm, and General Mills is agriculture rather than packaged food — because that is who writes their rules.
Most trackers carry only the first view. That is why they can tell you a member bought Lockheed, but not that the member sits on Armed Services.
The gap between Congress’s most-traded sector and its second is 133 trades out of 82,250. Technology 14,822, Consumer 14,689. Whatever else these portfolios are, they are not a bet on the future of computing — members file about as many trades in the companies that sell them dinner as in the ones that build the chips.
Party Comparison: Do Democrats and Republicans Buy the Same Stocks?
Congressional stock trading is bipartisan, and the data is almost boringly symmetrical about it. Both parties’ most-traded stock is Microsoft. Both parties’ top two sectors are Technology and Consumer, in a photo finish either way — Republicans lead with Technology by 109 trades, Democrats with Consumer by 137.
The divergence is narrower than the politics would suggest. Energy is the one clear split: 8.5% of Republican trades against 3.2% of Democratic ones. Healthcare leans the other way, but only modestly — 14.3% to 11.2%. And defense, the sector everyone expects to break along party lines, doesn’t break at all: 1.8% of Republican trades, 1.6% of Democratic. Both parties buy the contractors.
| Measure | Democrats | Republicans |
|---|---|---|
| Members trading | 97 | 126 |
| Deduplicated trades | 44,905 | 33,514 |
| Most active trader | Ro Khanna24,898 trades — 55% of all Democratic trades | Michael McCaul16,488 trades — 49% of all Republican trades |
| Top stock | MSFT | MSFT |
| Top sector | Consumer7,573 trades | Technology4,599 trades |
| Second sector | Technology7,436 — 137 behind | Consumer4,490 — 109 behind |
| Typical member files latemedian member, >45-day gap | 2.7% | 2.8% |
The compliance gap that isn’t. Measured per trade, Democrats file late on 6.0% of disclosures and Republicans on 19.2% — a three-to-one partisan gap, and a false one. Ro Khanna alone is 55% of all Democratic trades and files late 0.9% of the time; Michael McCaul is 49% of all Republican trades and files late 20.7%. The per-trade average is mostly measuring those two men. Give every member one vote instead, and the median Democrat files late 2.7% of the time against the median Republican’s 2.8% — the same rate, to within a rounding error. The STOCK Act’s enforcement problem is structural, not partisan.
Trends and Patterns in Congressional Stock Trading
Several patterns emerge when analyzing 14 years of STOCK Act data across 103,342 deduplicated trades. These patterns are consistent enough to be statistically meaningful and shed light on how Congress approaches the market differently from retail investors.
| Pattern | Observation | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Mega-Cap Concentration | Top 20 stocks account for a disproportionate share of all trades | Congress trades what they know — and regulate |
| Balanced, Not Bullish | Only ~13 of the top 50 show net buying; overall buy/sell is ~0.95x | The “Congress only buys” narrative doesn’t hold over the full record |
| Committee-Sector Alignment | Armed Services members trade defense stocks; Energy Committee trades oil | Committee-aligned trades cluster around the bills those members vote on |
| NVDA Surge | NVIDIA jumped from rank #12 to #5 during the AI boom (2023-2026) | Congress follows — and sometimes leads — sector momentum |
| Herd Behavior | When 3+ politicians buy the same stock within 14 days, it signals convergence | GovGreed detects 34 active herd signals across the database |
| Late Filer Premium | 12.6% of trades are filed after the 45-day STOCK Act deadline | Average gap: 49.7 days. Worst: 997 days (nearly 3 years) |
Key Takeaways
1. Technology dominance is structural, not cyclical. Tech has been the #1 traded sector in every year since 2012. Multiple committees regulate tech companies, giving more politicians both exposure and informational advantage.
2. Congress is roughly balanced — not a one-way buyer. Across the top 50 stocks, selling slightly outpaces buying (~0.95x overall) over the full 2012–2026 record. Net buying does show up in specific names — NVDA (1.1x), Home Depot (1.5x) and Costco (1.2x) — but heavyweights like Apple (0.7x) and Microsoft (0.9x) are net sells. For analysis of whether the buying that does happen translates into outperformance, see do politicians beat the market.
3. Breadth varies wildly by stock. MSFT has the most total trades (1,173), but AAPL is traded by the most politicians (142). Some stocks like NVDA have high trade counts but relatively few traders (69), suggesting concentrated buying by a smaller group — including high-profile traders like Nancy Pelosi.
4. Sector leans map to committee assignments. According to GovGreed's analysis of 440,806 bill-trade correlations, politicians on the Armed Services Committee trade defense stocks at higher rates, Financial Services members concentrate in bank stocks, and Energy Committee members trade oil and gas names.