STOCK Act disclosure lag: when Congress trades hit the public record late

Under the STOCK Act, members of Congress and certain staff must report securities transactions on periodic transaction reports. Unlike Form 4's two-business-day standard for corporate insiders, these disclosures often appear days or weeks after the trade date.

In a representative sequence: trade executes on day T, the report is signed later, and the public clerk posting is later still. Researchers who treat the disclosure date as the trade date systematically mis-time the event.

The gap between trade date and public posting is the disclosure lag. Large lags reduce the usefulness of the filing as a timely signal and increase the chance that price-moving news already intervened.

Congressional trading data is politically salient and easy to sensationalize. A disciplined reading starts with the clock: how late is the public learning about this trade?

Greedy Insider's Congressional Greediness Score treats disclosure timeliness as an explicit factor alongside size and context, so chronically late reports do not look identical to prompt ones.

When you see a congressional trade headline, check the trade date against the disclosure date before assigning meaning. Lag is structural - score it, disclose it, and do not confuse delayed transparency with a trading edge.