What is a Periodic Transaction Report?

A Periodic Transaction Report (PTR) is the disclosure form a member of Congress files to report a securities transaction under the STOCK Act. In other words, the PTR is the official record behind every congressional stock-trade headline.

What a PTR contains

A PTR identifies the filer and lists each reported transaction: the asset (for example, a stock ticker), the transaction type (purchase, sale, or exchange), the transaction date, the notification date, and an amount range for the trade size.

Why the value is a range

PTRs report trade size in brackets, not exact amounts. The smallest bracket starts at transactions over $1,000. So a filing tells you a trade fell within a range (for example, $1,001 to $15,000), not the precise dollar value.

What a PTR does not contain

A PTR does not include the exact execution price or the precise number of shares. Because of that, any price or return shown next to a disclosed trade is an estimate built from public market data, not a figure from the filing itself.

Common questions

Does a PTR show the exact trade amount?
No. A PTR reports the trade size as a range (the smallest bracket is transactions over $1,000), not an exact dollar amount.