Executive branch stock trade alerts

Capitol Gains covers the executive branch alongside Congress. When the President, a Cabinet secretary, or another senior executive-branch official reports a stock trade, they file an OGE Form 278-T with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics - and Capitol Gains builds an alert directly from that public filing.

Our source

Every executive-branch alert traces back to a public OGE Form 278-T, the periodic transaction report that senior executive-branch officials file with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. We do not add private data or rumor; if a trade is in an alert, it is because the official reported it and the filing became public.

How executive filings differ from Congress

The STOCK Act extended periodic transaction reporting beyond Congress to certain executive-branch officials, so the idea is the same as a congressional PTR - report a covered trade within the deadline - but the form and the filing system are different. A 278-T names the security, the type of transaction, the date, and an amount range, and defaults ownership to the filer.

Context also shifts branch to branch. A member of Congress sits on committees that oversee industries; an executive-branch official runs or reports to an agency that regulates or contracts with them. Capitol Gains maps that agency jurisdiction the way it maps committee oversight, so a Defense official's trade in a major defense contractor carries the same kind of backdrop.

Accuracy and timing

We report what the filing says, including its amount range, and we send the alert when the filing is public. As with congressional disclosures, that is after the trade, not in real time.

Common questions

Whose trades does this cover?
Senior executive-branch officials who are required to file an OGE Form 278-T periodic transaction report - for example the President, the Vice President, Cabinet secretaries, and other senior appointees. The trade itself comes straight from that public filing.