Follow the Money

Best for

Absolute beginners. Anyone who just wants to quickly check what a specific politician has bought or sold.

What you'll see when you land there

A running table of recent trades — politician name, party, chamber, the company traded, buy or sell, and a dollar range (exact amounts aren't legally required, only ranges).

Click-by-click

1. Go to capitoltrades.com.
2. Use the search bar at the top, or click "Politicians" in the menu, and type a name — try one you recognize.
3. Click that person's name to open their profile. You'll see their full trade history in one place.
4. Back on the main trades page, look for filter options (Party, Chamber, State, Date) — use these to narrow things down, like "just the last 90 days."
5. Find the "Type" column for Buy or Sell, and "Size" for the dollar range.
6. Click on any company ticker (like AAPL) to see every politician who has traded that stock.

What to look for, and why it matters

Watch for clusters — several politicians buying the same company around the same time can signal a sector getting attention. Just remember: these trades are reported up to 45 days late, so you're seeing history, not a live alert.

Best for

Learners who've already used Capitol Trades once or twice and want a bit more of the picture — like which companies are spending money to influence Congress.

What you'll see when you land there

A dashboard-style homepage with several data categories in the top menu — Congress Trading, Lobbying, Government Contracts, and more.

Click-by-click

1. Go to quiverquant.com.
2. Click "Congress Trading" in the top menu to load the free trades feed.
3. Use the search bar to type a stock ticker (like NVDA) or a politician's name to filter the list.
4. Scroll down to see the table: politician, ticker, transaction type, and filed date.
5. If you're curious, click the "Lobbying" tab to see which companies are spending on Congress — no pressure to explore this right away.

What to look for, and why it matters

Pairing lobbying data with trading data helps you see the fuller story — is a company spending heavily to influence policy while also seeing political trading activity around it?

Best for

Learners who are comfortable with the basics and curious about a broader view of "where big money is moving," not just Congress.

What you'll see when you land there

A live-updating feed of recent congressional trades, with a search and filter bar at the top of the page.

Click-by-click

1. Go to unusualwhales.com/politics.
2. Scroll the feed to browse, or use the search bar to type a ticker or a politician's name.
3. Click any row in the table to expand and see more detail on that specific trade.
4. That's genuinely all you need here. The site also has an options "Flow" section in the main menu, but that's a more advanced tool — feel free to leave it for later.

What to look for, and why it matters

This is a good second or third opinion — cross-check a trade you saw on Capitol Trades here to confirm it, the way you'd get a second doctor's opinion before a big decision.

Best for

Anyone who'd rather follow a small group of proven, well-known investors than sift through hundreds of politicians.

What you'll see when you land there

A list of well-known fund managers ("Superinvestors") — click any name to see their current portfolio: company, percent of portfolio, shares held, and recent activity.

Click-by-click

1. Go to dataroma.com.
2. You'll land on the Superinvestor list — click any name you recognize, like Warren Buffett / Berkshire Hathaway.
3. Review their holdings table: what they own, what percent of their portfolio it makes up, and whether they've recently added, trimmed, or exited a position.
4. Click "Activity" in the top menu to see a combined feed of every recent buy or sell across all tracked investors at once.
5. Compare the "Reported Price" column to the "Current Price" column — this tells you if the stock has moved since the filing came out.

What to look for, and why it matters

Because these portfolios are reported with a lag (mid-quarter, for the prior quarter), Dataroma itself recommends checking a stock's price chart over the past few months to get a sense of where the investor likely bought in — don't assume today's price is the same as their entry price.

Best for

Learners who want to look up any hedge fund by name, or flip it around and see which funds own a stock they're already interested in.

What you'll see when you land there

A search-first homepage. Everything starts with typing in a fund name or a ticker symbol.

Click-by-click

1. Go to whalewisdom.com.
2. In the search bar, type a fund name (like "Bridgewater") or a stock ticker to see which funds hold it.
3. Click a fund's name to open its filing history and full portfolio.
4. Look for the "Q/Q Change" column — this shows whether a position was increased, decreased, or newly opened that quarter.
5. Click "Latest Filings" in the menu to see the newest filings as they're posted, almost in real time.

What to look for, and why it matters

One trade is a data point. A fund steadily adding to the same position over two or three quarters in a row is a much stronger signal of real conviction — that consistency is what you want to notice.

Best for

Anyone who wants to verify something they saw on another site, straight from the source — or who simply prefers to "trust nothing but the government record itself."

What you'll see when you land there

A plain search box. This site is less about browsing and more about looking up one specific company or fund at a time.

Click-by-click

1. Go to sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar (or sec.gov/edgar/search for keyword searching).
2. Type a company or fund name — or its ticker symbol — into the main search box and click "Search."
3. On the results page, you'll see a list of filings. Look for "10-K" (a full annual report), "10-Q" (a quarterly report), or "13F" (a list of an institution's stock holdings).
4. Click the "Documents" link next to any filing to open it.
5. Once it's open, press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) to search inside the document for a specific word or phrase, so you're not scrolling through pages of legal text.

What to look for, and why it matters

This is as close as it gets to hearing it straight from the company or investor, with no summary or interpretation in between. Use it to double-check anything important you saw elsewhere on this list.