The trades are free to see. The question is what they mean. Capitol Trades put congressional stock trading in front of everyone: every STOCK Act disclosure in a clean feed, free, no account, filterable by party, committee, and state, with detailed member profiles. HoldingsIntel starts where that feed stops — when a member of Congress buys a stock, it checks whether the 551 largest institutional managers, the company's own insiders, and its activist holders are moving the same direction, and whether the member's record actually beats the market.
We build HoldingsIntel. Every number below is sourced and dated so you can check it — and where Capitol Trades is the better tool, the table says so.
HoldingsIntel vs. Capitol Trades
The trades are free to see. The question is what they mean.
Capitol Trades put congressional stock trading in front of everyone: every STOCK Act disclosure in a clean feed, free, no account, filterable by party, committee, and state, with detailed member profiles. HoldingsIntel starts where that feed stops — when a member of Congress buys a stock, it checks whether the 551 largest institutional managers, the company's own insiders, and its activist holders are moving the same direction, and whether the member's record actually beats the market.
| Dimension | HoldingsIntel | Capitol Trades |
|---|---|---|
| Congressional trade feed | STOCK Act disclosures, House and Senate, updated daily | real-time disclosure feed with a politician-first layout |
| Member record vs the market | every buy benchmarked against an index position opened and closed on the member's own dates1 | basic performance metrics |
| Price | free tier; $19–49/mo for the full suite | free, no account required |
| Member profiles & filters | per-member pages with trade histories | rich profiles, filterable by party, committee, and state |
| What institutions did with the same stock | holdings and quarter-over-quarter moves from the 551 largest managers, next to each trade | not covered — congressional trades only |
| Insider and activist activity on the name | Form 4 purchases and 13D/13G stakes, shown on the same stock page | different filings, different site |
| One combined read per stock | Smart Money Verdict: four disclosure types weighed into a single score | outside its scope, by design |
1The benchmark holds SPY over exactly the window the member chose — entered and exited on the trade's own dates — so a member gets no credit or blame for market moves outside their holding period.
A buy without context
Say a senator on the armed-services committee buys a defense name. On its own, that is a data point — interesting, screenshotable, unactionable. The question that turns it into research is whether anyone else with a disclosure obligation agrees: did focused funds add the same stock last quarter, is the CFO buying, has an activist filed a stake? Capitol Trades doesn't attempt that cross-check, and doesn't claim to — it is a congressional tracker, and a very good one. HoldingsIntel was built around exactly that next question: every congressional trade lands on a stock page where institutional, insider, and activist filings on the same name are already scored and waiting.
Where Capitol Trades is the better tool
Capitol Trades is what a free civic tool should be: no account, no paywall, a clean politician-first interface, member profiles with committee and party context, and a disclosure feed fast enough to catch filings the day they land. If congressional trading is the whole of what you follow, it needs no supplement — bookmark it and you're done.
Bottom line
Choose Capitol Trades
Congressional trades are the whole question — and free, fast, and clean answers it.
Choose HoldingsIntel
A member's buy is the start of the question: you want the institutional, insider, and activist record on the same stock, plus a market-matched read on whether that member's trades are worth following.
References
- House and Senate STOCK Act disclosure portals — primary source for congressional trades
- SEC EDGAR full-text filing system — primary source for institutional, insider, and activist data
- Capitol Trades public site — free, no-account access, as of 2026-07 (prior verification)
Questions traders actually ask
Should I use Capitol Trades or HoldingsIntel to follow Congress?
Decide by what you need after the trade. Capitol Trades shows every disclosure free, with the category's best member profiles — if seeing the trades is the job, it's done. HoldingsIntel is for the step after: each trade benchmarked over its own holding window and cross-checked against what institutions, insiders, and activists filed on the same stock.
What does HoldingsIntel show about a congressional trade that Capitol Trades doesn't?
Two things. Whether the member's buys have beaten a matched index — SPY held over the same dates as each trade — and what the rest of the disclosed money did with the same name: positions from the 551 largest managers, insider purchases, and activist stakes, resolved into one score per stock.
Is Capitol Trades really free, and is HoldingsIntel's congressional data free too?
Capitol Trades is fully free with no account. HoldingsIntel's congressional feed is on the free tier as well; the paid tiers ($19–49/mo) buy the layer around it — member-vs-market benchmarks, the institutional cross-reference, and the per-stock verdict.
More comparisons
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