Congress vs. Corporate Insiders: We Scored Every Trader We Track to Find the Sharpest 'Copy This' Signal.

Two crowds get the same accusation: they trade on something the rest of us don't see. Members of Congress vote on the industries they own; corporate executives file a Form 4 after buying their own stock. We track both, with prices — so we scored every disclosed buy and asked the only question that matters: whose purchases would you actually have made money copying?

The best stock-picker in Congress

Across the 60 members with enough priced buys to score, the average member's picks are up +39% to today — already a hint that this group isn't picking at random. But the standouts are stark. Measured by annualized alpha over the S&P 500 (copying each buy at its disclosure date, weeks after the trade):

Fetterman posts the highest alpha, but on only six trades — a small sample that could be luck. The more convincing "股神" is Tommy Tuberville: twenty disclosed buys, +259% total while the market did +51%, sustained over years. That's not one lucky call; that's a book.

The honest caveat we've made before: this is after the disclosure lag, but it still flatters the copier — you're buying at the report date, and the sample survived a growth bull. Follow the wrong member and you'd have lost. But the top of the Congress table is real, and it's broad enough to actually copy. Browse the full scores on /congress.

The best insider did better — on a bet you'd never have made

Corporate insiders are a different animal. Executives sell constantly (options, taxes, diversification), but they open-market buy their own stock rarely — and that rarity is the whole signal. In three years we've priced only a couple hundred genuine open-market executive purchases. The ones that mattered were enormous:

Schwarzman buying nearly $80M of his own Blackstone — which then roughly sextupled — is the best-performing insider signal in our data by a wide margin. Buffett's dozen open-market buys never had a losing name. But look at the third row: Jeff Green, the founder-CEO of The Trade Desk, put $161M into his own stock and it's down 22%. A founder buying big is a strong tell — not a guarantee.

The verdict

Both signals beat the market in our sample, and both come with the same asterisk (survivorship, a favorable market, a reporting lag). But they're different tools:

• Congress is the copyable one. Dozens of members, hundreds of trades, a clear top tier led by Tuberville. Enough breadth to actually build a basket — which is exactly why we backtested it.
• Insider buying is the rarer, higher-conviction one. When a founder buys tens of millions of their own stock, history says pay attention. But it's a handful of events a year, and — see Jeff Green — it can still be wrong.

The sharpest signal isn't Congress or insiders; it's conviction plus rarity. A senator's twentieth small-cap punt and a founder's once-in-a-decade open-market buy are not the same bet. Watch both live on /congress and /insider — and weight the rare, big, own-company purchase heaviest.

Methodology: every scored buy priced from its transaction (Congress) or Form 4 filing (insiders) to the latest close; insider figures cover genuine open-market executive purchases only (option exercises and sales excluded), and duplicate entity filings are merged to one buyer. Small samples, survivorship, and a growth-favorable window all flatter these returns. Past performance does not predict future returns. Not investment advice.