Data Dictionary

Name: The Potomac Ledger — disclosed U.S. government stock trades
Creator: The Potomac Ledger
License: https://potomacledger.com/data-license/

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The Potomac Ledger · Version 2026-06-09 · generated 2026-06-09

Disclosed stock trades of U.S. members of Congress and senior executive-branch officials (STOCK Act periodic transaction reports and OGE Form 278-T). 35,150 records — 24,791 congressional, 10,359 executive.

Machine-readable version (for AI agents & data buyers): /data-dictionary.json · Usage terms: data license

Fields

Field	Type	Congress	Exec	Description
`id`	string	100%	100%	Stable, immutable record id (tl_<hash>). Re-pullable / citeable.
`branch`	string	100%	100%	"congress" or "executive".
`person`	string	100%	100%	Member of Congress or executive-branch official who filed.
`personId`	string	100%	100%	Stable person id: bio:<Bioguide> for resolved Congress members, else name:<slug>.
`role`	string	100%	100%	Chamber (House/Senate) for Congress; title for executive officials.
`party`	string	100%	0%	D / R / I (Congress; resolved from the legislators index).
`state`	string	100%	0%	Two-letter state (Congress).
`agency`	string	0%	100%	Department/agency (executive branch).
`ticker`	string	84.6%	55.4%	Stock ticker; null for non-listed assets (bonds, funds, private holdings).
`issuerId`	string	99.9%	100%	Normalized issuer id: tic:<TICKER> when listed, else ast:<slug> of the asset name.
`asset`	string	99.9%	100%	Free-text asset/company name as disclosed.
`type`	string	100%	100%	Canonical action: buy \| sell \| partial_sale \| exchange \| other.
`typeRaw`	string	100%	100%	Original filing transaction code, preserved for audit (e.g. p, s, s (partial), e).
`amountRange`	string	99.8%	100%	Disclosed dollar RANGE (e.g. "$1,001 - $15,000") — not an exact figure.
`amountMin`	number	100%	100%	Lower bound of the disclosed range.
`amountMax`	number	100%	100%	Upper bound of the disclosed range (null for open-ended "$X +").
`tradeDate`	date	100%	100%	Date of the transaction (ISO). The correct anchor for timing analysis.
`disclosureDate`	date	94.8%	96.5%	Date the filing was disclosed. Lags the trade by 30-45 days; sparse on historical rows.
`sector`	string	78.5%	18.9%	GICS-style sector of the ticker. Populated only for single-company equities; empty for ETFs/funds (see securityType) and non-listed assets.
`securityType`	string	80.9%	0%	Instrument class from market-data classification (EQUITY, ETF, MUTUALFUND, INDEX, …). When sector is empty, securityType=ETF/MUTUALFUND signals "sector N/A — diversified fund," not missing data.
`potentialConflict`	boolean	8.9%	1.2%	Heuristic flag: ticker sector overlaps the person's committee/agency jurisdiction. Only fires on a real sector match, so ETFs/funds (no sector) are never flagged. Not an accusation. Percentage shown is the share flagged true.
`filingUrl`	string	99.7%	100%	Link to the primary-source filing.
`returns`	object	79.7%	52.7%	Forward split/dividend-adjusted stock return + market-adjusted (vs SPY) abnormal return at ~1mo/3mo, anchored on the disclosure date where available (point-in-time) else the trade date. A PROXY for trade timing, NOT the official's realized profit (execution price, exact size, and holding period are unknown). Null when no price match.

Enrichment completeness by year — Congress

Sector, conflict flags, and disclosure dates are populated mainly on recent data. Don’t assume historical rows carry them.

Year	Rows	sector	disclosureDate
2021	5,453	80.4%	95.8%
2022	4,449	75.5%	95%
2023	4,784	76.4%	92.6%
2024	2,780	72.8%	93%
2025	6,092	82.6%	95.5%
2026	1,233	81.7%	100%

Enrichment completeness by year — Executive

Executive trades come directly from OGE Form 278-T filings, so they carry a disclosure date and a primary-source link. Tickers are extracted where the filing names a listed security.

Year	Rows	disclosureDate	ticker	sector
2001	1	100%	0%	0%
2019	783	92.1%	37.2%	7.7%
2020	1,418	93.1%	66.9%	23.6%
2021	2,003	99.7%	68.2%	29%
2022	1,297	92.7%	74.1%	14.6%
2023	1,041	90.1%	83.8%	14.9%
2024	599	99.8%	80.3%	9.5%
2025	2,070	100%	29.2%	17.9%
2026	1,147	100%	19.2%	18.1%

Sources

Congress: STOCK Act periodic transaction reports via Financial Modeling Prep, plus a historical backfill. House disclosure dates + filing links from the House Clerk bulk index; Senate dates + efdsearch.senate.gov links from the FMP feed (recent filings — the historical Senate backlog is sparse).
Executive: OGE Form 278-T filings pulled directly from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics — each row links to its primary-source filing and carries the disclosure date.
Prices: split/dividend-adjusted daily closes (Yahoo) for the returns fields.

Known limitations

Disclosed date is not the trade date — STOCK Act filings lag 30-45 days. Anchor timing analysis on tradeDate.
Dollar figures are disclosed ranges, not exact amounts (interval-censored).
Conflict flags are heuristic potential overlaps, not assertions of wrongdoing.
Spouse/dependent and blind-trust trades are co-mingled; the filer name is not proof of the filer's decision.
Congressional sector/potentialConflict enrichment is populated mainly on recent data — see per-year completeness.
Disclosure dates + filing links are present for essentially all House trades and for recent Senate trades; the historical Senate backlog (mostly pre-2025) is sparse on both, because the upstream feed only exposes recent Senate filings. New Senate trades are captured going forward, so Senate coverage rises over time.
Returns are forward stock performance after disclosure (split/dividend-adjusted, market-adjusted vs SPY) — a reproducible proxy for trade timing, not the filer's realized profit. We do not know their execution price, exact size (amounts are ranges), or holding period.
Not investment advice.