STOCK Act 2.0

Key Points

• The bill bans Members of Congress, the President, Vice President, Supreme Court justices, Federal Reserve governors, and their spouses and dependent children from holding, buying, or selling individual stocks, futures, commodities, and cryptocurrency. Diversified mutual funds and U.S. Treasury bonds are exempt.
• Officials who already own stocks or other covered investments must sell them within 120 days of the law taking effect or within 120 days of taking office, whichever is later. Inherited investments also get a 120-day window to sell.
• Senior officials must report any federal government payments they receive, including loans, contracts, and grants, within 30 to 45 days. Failing to file costs a $5,000 fine each time.
• The bill extends financial disclosure and stock trading rules to presidents, vice presidents, and directors of Federal Reserve banks for the first time, with the Fed's Inspector General serving as the supervising ethics office.
• New searchable online databases would let the public look up financial disclosures by filer name, asset, ticker symbol, transaction type, and dollar amount. The data must also be available through an application programming interface (API) for developers and researchers.
• Anyone who violates the stock trading ban faces a fine of at least 10 percent of the value of the investment they illegally traded or held. There is also a 120-day cooling-off period after leaving office during which officials still cannot trade covered assets.