Periodic transaction report: what a congressional PTR shows, line by line
The PTR is the STOCK Act form behind every Congress trade. Here is what each field means, where to find the reports and how AyeWatch tells you when one is filed.
By ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom, Editorial team··3 min read
A periodic transaction report, or PTR, is the short form a member of Congress files to disclose a single purchase, sale or exchange of a stock, bond or other security worth more than $1,000. It is the document behind every Congress trade you see on a tracker, and if you want to know when a new one is filed without checking the databases yourself, AyeWatch can watch for it and send a summary with the link.
Where the PTR comes from
The STOCK Act of 2012 added the requirement to the Ethics in Government Act. A covered person must file within 30 days of being notified of a transaction, and never later than 45 days after the transaction itself. The same law, as later amended, is why the House and the Senate put members' reports online for anyone to read.
The House Ethics Committee's instruction guide adds the details for representatives:
- The report covers assets held by the member, the spouse or dependent children.
- The threshold is the gross amount of one transaction, so a sale at a loss still counts.
- A late PTR carries a minimum fee of $200.
- PTRs are filed with the Clerk of the House, not with the Ethics Committee.
What a periodic transaction report shows, field by field
Open any House PTR and each trade sits on one line. Here is what the columns mean, based on the Ethics Committee's guide and a filed report from the Clerk's site:
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Owner | SP for a spouse's asset, DC for a dependent child's, JT for a joint holding |
| Asset | The full asset name, ideally with the ticker; for options, strike price, expiration and put or call |
| Transaction type | Purchase, full sale, partial sale or exchange |
| Transaction date | Usually the day the security was traded |
| Notification date | The day the filer learned of the trade, which starts the 30-day clock |
| Amount | A value range, such as $15,001 to $50,000, not an exact figure |
| Capital gains over $200 | A yes or no box |
At the bottom, the filer certifies that the report is complete and that all transactions the STOCK Act requires have been disclosed.
How to read one without over-reading it
Three habits keep you from drawing the wrong conclusion:
- Check the owner column first. A trade marked SP was made in a spouse's account, which is a different story from the member trading personally.
- Compare the two dates. The gap between the transaction date and the filing date tells you how stale the trade is. Weeks are normal.
- Treat the amount as a band. A line in the $1,000,001 to $5,000,000 range could sit anywhere in it, so profit figures built on PTRs are estimates.
None of this is investment advice. A PTR is a record of what someone already did.
Where to find PTRs
House reports are in the Clerk's financial disclosure database, searchable by last name, year, state and district, with a yearly download as well. Senate reports are in the Senate's eFD search at efdsearch.senate.gov. Tracker sites such as Quiver Quantitative and Unusual Whales parse the same filings into tables.
Getting told when a new PTR is filed
The House database is a search form, so finding a new PTR means going back and searching again. That is where AyeWatch fits. Describe what you follow in plain English, for example: "Alert me when a member of Congress files a periodic transaction report that includes a bank stock." AyeWatch watches the web, the pages you paste in and public social accounts that post filings, then sends a short summary with links so you can open the PTR itself.
It does not keep its own database of filings, and for years of PTR history in one table, a dataset like Quiver is the better choice. For the alert, AyeWatch has a free preview, push and in-app alerts on every plan, and paid plans from $9 a month.