Learn the game

How to read congressional trade disclosures

Members of the U.S. House and Senate must publicly disclose most stock trades under the STOCK Act. House members file Periodic Transaction Reports (PTRs) with the Clerk of the House; Senators file through the Senate's electronic filing system (eFD).

• What you get: who traded, the company, buy or sell, a dollar range (e.g. $15,001–$50,000 — never the exact amount), the trade date, and the filing date.
• The catch — timing: they have up to 45 days to file, and many file late. A trade you see today may have happened weeks ago. It is a research lead, not a live signal.
• The catch — ranges: "$15,001–$50,000" is a wide band. You don't know if it was $16k or $49k.
• How to use it: look for patterns — repeated buys in one sector, multiple members buying the same stock — and then do your own homework on the company.

What a 13F is — and its limits

Any investment manager holding more than $100 million in U.S. stocks must file Form 13F with the SEC every quarter, listing what they own. That's how the public learns what Berkshire Hathaway, Scion, Duquesne, and Pershing Square hold.

• What you get: a snapshot of long stock positions at quarter-end, filed about 45 days later.
• What you don't get: short positions, bonds, options detail, international stocks, or anything sold before quarter-end. A "new buy" in a 13F could already be sold by the time you read it.
• How to use it: treat a new 13F position as a starting point for your own research into that company — never as a buy recommendation.

Forex basics

Forex (foreign exchange) is the market where currencies trade against each other, quoted in pairs like EUR/USD. The first currency is what you buy or sell; the second is what it's priced in. If EUR/USD is 1.17, one euro costs 1.17 dollars.

• Currencies move on interest-rate expectations, economic data, and risk appetite — plus central-bank decisions (see below).
• Unlike stocks, there's no single "forex guru" filing to follow. Currency funds don't disclose positions, so in FX we track aggregate money: positioning data, rate gaps, and central banks.

What COT positioning means

Every Friday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) publishes the Commitments of Traders (COT) report — a snapshot from the previous Tuesday of who's positioned where in futures markets, including currency futures.

• Who's in it: groups like leveraged funds (often hedge funds) and asset managers, shown as long and short contract counts.
• What matters: net positioning (longs minus shorts) and how extreme it is versus history. When everyone is already long, there's nobody left to buy — crowded trades can snap back.
• The catch: it's weekly and backward-looking. It tells you where the crowd was standing, not where price goes next.

Carry trades

A carry trade earns the gap between two countries' interest rates: borrow (or sell) the low-rate currency, hold the high-rate one, and pocket the difference.

• Example: if U.S. rates sit near 3.75–4.00% and Swiss rates near 0.00%, holding dollars versus francs earns roughly a 3.875-point annual tailwind.
• The catch: exchange-rate moves can wipe out months of carry in a day. Carry is a tailwind, not a guarantee — it favors a direction but never protects you.

Central-bank calendars

Central banks — the Federal Reserve (U.S.), European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of England — set the interest rates that drive currencies. Their scheduled decision days are the highest-volatility days in FX.

• Markets move less on the decision itself and more on what's expected versus what happens — and on the press-conference guidance about the next move.
• Practical rule: know the meeting dates before you hold a currency position through one.

Glossary

13F

Quarterly SEC filing listing a large manager's U.S. stock holdings. Filed ~45 days after quarter-end.

PTR (Periodic Transaction Report)

The disclosure form members of Congress file for stock trades over $1,000.

STOCK Act

The 2012 law requiring members of Congress to disclose trades promptly and barring insider trading.

COT (Commitments of Traders)

Weekly CFTC report showing futures positioning by trader group.

Net positioning

Long contracts minus short contracts for a trader group — the directional bet of the crowd.

Open interest

Total outstanding futures contracts in a market. Positioning is often expressed as a share of it.

Carry

The interest-rate differential earned (or paid) for holding one currency versus another.

Forex pair

Two currencies quoted against each other, e.g. USD/JPY. The first is the base, the second the quote.

Mean reversion

The tendency of crowded, stretched markets to snap back toward average — a watch, not a prediction.

Filing lag

The delay between a trade happening and its public disclosure — why disclosures are research leads, not live signals.