Suspicious Timing
Major political announcements move markets. These are congressional trades that happened in the 10 days before those announcements, in the exact stocks and sectors that were affected. Trades made after are excluded - that's just public information. What's left is the suspicious part.
How this works
For each major political event, we search our database of 41,860 congressional trade disclosures for any trades in affected tickers in the 10 days before the event. We only show trades made before the announcement - trades made after are irrelevant since the information was already public. A trade before an event could mean foresight, routine portfolio activity, or pure coincidence. We flag the timing - you decide what it means.
$950M bet on oil drop before Trump Iran ceasefire
In the hours before Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, traders placed an approximately $950 million bet on oil prices falling. Oil prices subsequently dropped approximately 15%.
| Timing | Politician | Tickers | Action | # Trades | Est. Value | Owner(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
6d before
Apr 1, 2026
|
Michael McCaul Rep | COP | Sell | 1 | $8K | Spouse |
Pre-dawn oil futures surge before Trump Iran announcement
$580 million in oil futures traded between 6:49-6:50 AM - a 9x spike above the 5-day average for that window. 15 minutes later, Trump posted that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and he was halting planned strikes on Iranian power plants.
| Timing | Politician | Tickers | Action | # Trades | Est. Value | Owner(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
10d before
Mar 13, 2026
|
Michael McCaul Rep | CVX | Sell | 1 | $750K | Spouse |
|
Same day
Mar 23, 2026
|
Michael McCaul Rep | CVX | Sell | 1 | $33K | Spouse |
Jonathan Jackson buys BP oil stock days before Iran announcement
Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D) purchased British Petroleum (BP) stock on March 19-20, just 3-4 days before the March 23 Iran announcement. Jackson has traded BP before (bought in 2023, sold in 2024) and re-entered right before geopolitical oil volatility.
| Timing | Politician | Tickers | Action | # Trades | Est. Value | Owner(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
8d before
Mar 11, 2026
|
David Taylor Rep | CVX | Sell | 1 | $8K | Not disclosed |
|
7d before
Mar 12, 2026
|
David Taylor Rep | CVX | Sell | 1 | $8K | Not disclosed |
|
6d before
Mar 13, 2026
|
Michael McCaul Rep | CVX | Sell | 1 | $750K | Spouse |
|
Same day
Mar 19, 2026
|
Jonathan Jackson Dem | BP | Buy | 1 | $33K | Joint |
A note on what this page shows
This page maps publicly disclosed congressional trades against documented political events. A trade near an event is not proof of wrongdoing - members of Congress trade frequently, and coincidences happen. What matters is the pattern: when the same sectors and tickers keep appearing in the days before market-moving announcements, the question shifts from "is this suspicious?" to "how often does this happen?"
The larger suspicious trading incidents (the $580M pre-dawn oil futures bet, the $950M ceasefire trade) involve anonymous market participants - not necessarily Congress members. We include those events for context because they show the environment in which congressional trading happens.