Stop copying Congress trades without checking their actual track record

The alt data crowd starts with "who bought what?" but the harder question is whether that person has a real track record. Most Congress trading tools list disclosed transactions and stop there. They don't tell you whether that politician has actually outperformed after buying their own stocks. There's also a timing problem a lot of people miss. Many Congress trading backtests credit the strategy with buying on the transaction date before the trade was public. No real follower could have done that. Congress filings have a lag between the transaction and the disclosure, and by the time retail sees it the move may already be priced in. A backtest that uses transaction dates instead of disclosure dates is going to look a lot better than what you'd actually achieve. The questions I think matter more than "what did they buy?": \- Does this politician actually outperform? Not "do they trade a lot" but "have their disclosed positions beaten the market after the filing went public?" \- Is this trade already too old? The lag between transaction and disclosure can be weeks. What changed in that window? \- What happened after similar signals in the past? Not anecdotes, but measured outcomes across multiple horizons. The shift from "interesting transaction data" to "does this actually help identify outperforming opportunities" is the real question for anyone using Congress trade data. Curious how others here evaluate that.