How we estimate what a trade was worth

The method, in three steps

1. Take the midpoint of the filed bracket

A "$15,001 – $50,000" purchase is treated as $32,500. This is the first estimate, and its error is half the width of the bracket.

2. Divide by the closing price on the trade date

That gives an implied share count. Markets shut at weekends, so we use the most recent close ON OR BEFORE the trade — never after, which would let hindsight leak into the number.

3. Multiply by the change in price since

Implied shares times the move from that close to the latest one. That is the estimated change in value.

Where we refuse to estimate

Sales

A sale has no cost basis in the record — we never saw the purchase. We show the bracket and nothing else. A zero would read as "made nothing", which is a claim; we show no figure at all, which is true.

The open-ended top bracket

"Over $50,000,000" has no midpoint. Inventing a ceiling for it would be the largest single fabrication on the site, so those rows are flagged and left unestimated.

Anything without a price

If we hold no closing price for that ticker on or before the trade date, there is no estimate. The row says so rather than showing a blank you might read as zero.

What these numbers are not

A periodic transaction report records transactions, never holdings, so a member’s portfolio total is not derivable from this data at all — not by us, and not by anyone else publishing one.

And every filing is up to 45 days old before it is public. These estimates describe the past. They are an accountability record, not a trading signal, and nothing here is investment advice.

Sources

• U.S. House Clerk — Financial Disclosure search
• CRS — Public financial reporting by federal officials

Keep reading

• Why a disclosed amount is a range and never a numberMembers report one of ten brackets, not a figure. Everything you read about congressional trading profits is estimated from those brackets — here is how, and how wrong it can be.
• How to read a periodic transaction reportEvery field on the form, which three actually matter, and the two that are most often misread.
• The STOCK Act, explainedWhat the 2012 law actually requires members of Congress to disclose, who it covers, and the three things people most often get wrong about it.