DeSantis Slams Congress Stock Trading as SPY Trails Lawmakers

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned on Nov. 4 how members of Congress with no investment background can outperform Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK) Chairman Emeritus Warren Buffett, who needed more than 60 years to build his track record. The average Republican trader in Congress returned 17.3% in 2025 and the average Democrat returned 14.4%, both ahead of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY) at 16.6%, per the latest Unusual Whales Congress trading report.

Context — Why DeSantis Is Pressing Congress on Stock Trades Now

DeSantis tied the question to committee assignments, describing the pattern of a lawmaker buying into an industry they oversee and watching the position run. He has pushed the issue since at least Jan. 6, when he said at a press conference that he stopped trading after winning his first U.S. House race in 2012. He called himself poorer for that choice.

At that same January event he said new lawmakers can arrive in Washington and become, in his words, Warren Buffett on steroids. He backed Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's push for a congressional trading ban and proposed requiring Florida's federal candidates to disclose whether they intend to trade individual stocks if elected.

On Nov. 4, the day after the midterm elections, DeSantis repeated that he has never traded stocks while in elected office and called lawmakers trading stocks untenable. He also argued that failing to act cost his party at the ballot box, asking why Congress does not simply ban the practice.

The timing matters because House Democrats, after the July vote, vowed to pass their own ban if they won the chamber. They take over the House in January, which puts the question back on the floor with a different majority.

The push also lands against a live legislative record. The House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act 232-198 on July 22, a bill that would bar lawmakers, their spouses and their dependent children from buying new individual stocks while letting them keep existing shares. That bill stalled in the Senate on Sept. 30 after Republicans attached a voter identification requirement Democrats opposed.

Data — What the Congress Trading Scoreboard Actually Shows

Unusual Whales tracks disclosed congressional trades and publishes average returns by party. The 2025 figures put the average Republican trader at 17.3% and the average Democrat at 14.4%, against SPY's 16.6%. That leaves the Republican average about 0.7 percentage points ahead of the index and the Democratic average roughly 2.2 points behind it.

The distribution matters more than the averages. The 10 best performers in Congress all more than doubled the index, meaning the top of the list is where returns detach from anything resembling index tracking. A single 150% gain on a position tied to a committee's jurisdiction would do more for a personal return than a full year of broad market exposure.

Measure	2025 return
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)	16.6%
Average Republican trader in Congress	17.3%
Average Democrat trader in Congress	14.4%
Top 10 congressional performers	More than double the index

Disclosure rules are the mechanism behind the data. Lawmakers file periodic transaction reports, and retail investors now treat those filings as a source of trade ideas. That creates a feedback loop the report does not quantify: attention on a disclosed trade can move a name independently of the lawmaker's own reasoning.

Analysis — Which Sectors and Tickers Carry the Signal

The sector angle is where the committee overlap becomes concrete. DeSantis described buying into an industry a lawmaker oversees, and the industries that draw the most congressional attention are the ones with direct federal exposure: defense contractors, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, energy, and large-cap technology platforms facing regulation.

Those are also the sectors where a single legislative or procurement decision can reprice a stock fast. A committee seat does not grant non-public information, but it does place a lawmaker closer to the calendar of hearings, markups and agency decisions that move those groups. That proximity is the entire substance of the complaint.

The counter-argument deserves equal weight. Congressional portfolios are small relative to institutional books, they are disclosed with a lag, and the sample is thin. Two years of party averages against a single index fund is not a track record, and the 2025 spread between Republicans and Democrats is wide enough to suggest composition and timing effects rather than a uniform edge.

There is also a selection effect. Lawmakers who trade are not a random draw from the population; they are people who chose to manage a portfolio while holding office. The 10 top performers doubling the index is a small group inside a small group, and outliers carry outsized weight in any average built on them.

Positioning is the tell. If a ban advances, the flow that matters is not institutional but personal: individual names favored by heavy-disclosing lawmakers could see retail attention fade, while index products like SPY absorb nothing either way. The bill as passed by the House would allow existing holdings to remain, so any unwind would be gradual rather than forced.

Outlook — What to Watch on the Congressional Trading Ban

The immediate catalyst is the new House majority in January, when Democrats have said they intend to bring their own version of a trading ban. The scope of that text — whether it covers spouses and dependent children, and whether it grandfathers existing positions — determines how much of the current disclosure-driven flow changes.

In the Senate, the Stop Insider Trading Act remains stalled since Sept. 30 over the voter identification provision. Any movement there would require that dispute to be resolved or the provision stripped.

On the data side, the next Unusual Whales Congress trading report will show whether the 2025 party averages hold or revert toward SPY's 16.6%. A narrowing spread would weaken the outperformance argument DeSantis is making; a wider one would strengthen it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the congressional stock trading debate mean for retail investors?

Disclosed congressional trades have become a source of trade ideas, so retail investors watching those filings are effectively following a lagged, incomplete signal. The 2025 data shows the average Republican trader at 17.3% and the average Democrat at 14.4% against SPY's 16.6%, which is not a large enough gap to treat any single disclosure as a reliable edge. The filings show what was bought, not why.

What happens next for the Stop Insider Trading Act?

The bill passed the House 232-198 on July 22 and stalled in the Senate on Sept. 30 after Republicans attached a voter identification requirement Democrats opposed. House Democrats have said they will pass their own ban once they take the chamber in January. Whether a ban reaches the president's desk depends on resolving the Senate dispute or advancing a separate Democratic text.

Why did Congress members outperform the S&P 500 in 2025?

The report does not attribute the returns to a single cause. The averages are close to SPY, with Republicans at 17.3% and Democrats at 14.4% against 16.6%, so the party-level gap is modest. The sharper divergence sits at the top: the 10 best performers all more than doubled the index, which points to a small number of concentrated positions rather than broad skill across Congress.

Bottom Line

Congress's average trader barely beat SPY in 2025, so the real question is what the top 10 knew.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. CFD trading carries high risk of capital loss.