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Still a work in progress, but https://www.govtrades.com https://www.govtrades.com as a site to easily view stock returns of senators. The goal is to increase tr

Still a work in progress, but https://www.govtrades.com https://www.govtrades.com as a site to easily view stock returns of senators. The goal is to increase transparency of trades and accountability in policymaking as its becoming clearer that senators still leverage non-public information in trading and may be swayed in policymaking based on stocks they own. (Edited to make link clickable)

jwilber 6y ago
This is awesome. Reach out to me sometime if you want help moving from plotly to a more web-based visualization (Eg D3), I’d love to help :) jdwlbr @ google’s email
- bingdig 6y ago
  Thanks! I'll reach out once we have v1 completed and are looking to improve the site.
keenmaster 6y ago
Good stuff. I recommend indexing to the SP500 so that it’s obvious when senators beat the market in a way that warrants further investigation.
- bingdig 6y ago
  There is a toggle for the S&P500 you can select, but definitely agree that this should show up as a default to make it clear. One thing we've noticed is that most senators don't beat the S&P500, but the main reason seems to be that they simply have less risky portfolios (e.g. a lot of bond ETFs)
dang 6y ago
There was another reply in this thread working on something similar; I'm sorry that I don't remember what it was, or where to find it in this haystack, but you might be able to dig it up if you're curious.
zeptonix 6y ago
Any chance of getting individual trades / more detailed data up? What kind of underlying data sources are there for this stuff?
- bingdig 6y ago
  Totally, that should be up within the next couple days. You can check out the methodology section for more details, but the data comes from public disclosures mandated by the STOCK Act (and Yahoo Finance for stock prices).
- firethief 6y ago
  nsomani just did a Show HN about getting the sources of this data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23190921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23190921
drumttocs8 6y ago
Feel bad for Maria Cantwell now.
- bingdig 6y ago
  You might feel even worse when you learn that she's faced continued losses since the Dotcom bubble. Almost all her stock holdings are of RealNetworks, a company she worked for in the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Cantwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Cantwell
posedge 6y ago
This website reliably crashes my Firefox on Android. Never seen anything like that :D
- bingdig 6y ago
  Thanks for letting me know, we're getting a ton of traffic and working on increasing stability / speed.
lilsoso 6y ago
A great feature to add would be a weekly email, featuring the trades of the top performing senators over long term time horizons. That way users could copy their trades on the presumption it is either insider trading or expert advice.
- bingdig 6y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion, we're planning on starting that up soon. Give the newsletter a subscribe if you'd like to receive updates/summaries as soon as they start: https://www.govtrades.com/subscribe https://www.govtrades.com/subscribe
gabrielrdz 6y ago
I saw this on Reddit so I guess that's why you're getting double hugged to death

jwilber 6y ago

This is awesome. Reach out to me sometime if you want help moving from plotly to a more web-based visualization (Eg D3), I’d love to help :) jdwlbr @ google’s email

bingdig 6y ago
Thanks! I'll reach out once we have v1 completed and are looking to improve the site.

keenmaster 6y ago

Good stuff. I recommend indexing to the SP500 so that it’s obvious when senators beat the market in a way that warrants further investigation.

bingdig 6y ago
There is a toggle for the S&P500 you can select, but definitely agree that this should show up as a default to make it clear. One thing we've noticed is that most senators don't beat the S&P500, but the main reason seems to be that they simply have less risky portfolios (e.g. a lot of bond ETFs)

dang 6y ago

There was another reply in this thread working on something similar; I'm sorry that I don't remember what it was, or where to find it in this haystack, but you might be able to dig it up if you're curious.

zeptonix 6y ago

Any chance of getting individual trades / more detailed data up? What kind of underlying data sources are there for this stuff?

bingdig 6y ago
Totally, that should be up within the next couple days. You can check out the methodology section for more details, but the data comes from public disclosures mandated by the STOCK Act (and Yahoo Finance for stock prices).
firethief 6y ago
nsomani just did a Show HN about getting the sources of this data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23190921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23190921

drumttocs8 6y ago

Feel bad for Maria Cantwell now.

bingdig 6y ago
You might feel even worse when you learn that she's faced continued losses since the Dotcom bubble. Almost all her stock holdings are of RealNetworks, a company she worked for in the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Cantwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Cantwell

posedge 6y ago

This website reliably crashes my Firefox on Android. Never seen anything like that :D

bingdig 6y ago
Thanks for letting me know, we're getting a ton of traffic and working on increasing stability / speed.

lilsoso 6y ago

A great feature to add would be a weekly email, featuring the trades of the top performing senators over long term time horizons. That way users could copy their trades on the presumption it is either insider trading or expert advice.

bingdig 6y ago
Thanks for the suggestion, we're planning on starting that up soon. Give the newsletter a subscribe if you'd like to receive updates/summaries as soon as they start: https://www.govtrades.com/subscribe https://www.govtrades.com/subscribe

gabrielrdz 6y ago

I saw this on Reddit so I guess that's why you're getting double hugged to death