Insider Trading in the Capitol? An Analysis of Abnormal Returns from the Common Stock Investments of U.S. Senators

In this paper, I conduct a study of United States Senators’ stock portfolios from 2004 to 2016 in order to better understand the effects of the STOCK Act (the “Act”) and its role in preventing insider trading amongst Members of Congress. The paper analyzes a sample stock portfolio from 2004 to 2016, focusing on the differences in returns from common stocks on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations System (NASDAQ) and the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) following the implementation of the Act in 2012. My findings indicate that from 2004 to 2016, U.S. Senators tended to underperform the market by 1.32% a year