The 278
THE 278
Issue 001 — Welcome to the desk
A newsletter that reads the President’s brokerage statements so you don’t have to.
Here’s a fact that still surprises people: the President of the United States runs one of the busiest trading accounts in the country, and by law, we get to see nearly all of it.
Every senior federal official has to disclose their trades. The President files the big annual report plus periodic updates along the way, and the paperwork is public. The catch is that it’s almost unreadable — hundreds of pages, thousands of line items, dollar amounts printed in wide ranges, and no one bothering to tell you what any of it means.
So that’s the job here. I’m going to track his trades. Every buy, every sell, every ticker that shows up in the filings — pulled out, translated into plain English, and handed to you without the 900 pages of noise.
What I’m actually doing
Think of this as a running log of the President’s stock ideas. When a name appears in his disclosures, it goes on the board. When he adds to it, sells it, or rotates into something new, that goes on the board too. Over time you get something you can’t get anywhere else in one place: a clean, ongoing picture of what this portfolio is actually doing.
The trading is real and it is heavy — his accounts move through hundreds of individual stocks, with a single quarter carrying a reported value in the hundreds of millions. There is a lot to track. That’s exactly why it’s worth tracking.
What you’ll get each issue
The buys — new names showing up in the filings, decoded ticker by ticker.
The sells — what’s getting trimmed or dumped, and when.
The running board — the current shape of the portfolio, updated as new filings drop.
Plain English — the government reports everything in ranges and legalese. I do the decoding so you just get the read.
The one house rule
Receipts, always. Every trade I mention traces back to an actual public filing — no screenshots of anonymous accounts passed off as fact. If something’s a rumor, I’ll call it a rumor. If it’s in the document, I’ll link the document.
Follow along. New filings, new trades, straight to your inbox. I read the paperwork so you don’t have to.
Just to clarify, this just serves as a transparency helper, not as trading advice since the information is old (although correct). Filings are made/published months after the trades.
what is the average lag between when President Donald Trump makes a securities trade and when he publicly discloses it? +10 President Donald Trump's securities trades have frequently been disclosed months after the legally mandated window. While the STOCK Act requires high-level executive officials to report stock transactions over \(\$1,000\) within 45 days , records show Trump's accounts were involved in a churn of trades quietly playing out for up to a year before being disclosed .The massive volume of trading has led to several specific reporting lapses:Delayed Annual Disclosures: A recent 927-page disclosure revealed hundreds of stock purchases (like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon) executed on April 8, 2025, that were not publicly reported until over a year later .First-Quarter 2026 Filings: During the first quarter, Trump's investment accounts made 3,642 transactions (averaging about 63 trades per day) . While he was required to report them, he missed deadlines and was assessed a \(\$200\) penalty for tardiness .February 2026 Sales: The president sold millions of dollars in tech stocks in February 2026, but the transactions were not publicly revealed until they were filed months late, resulting in a late fee .Trump's representatives have stated that his financial portfolio is managed entirely by independent, third-party money managers with automated trade execution.Further Exploration: Investigations and Financial DisclosuresExplore the CBS News Dashboard to track details of the president's 3,600 stock trades.Review the Washington Post Report on the missing deadlines and fines.Examine the CNBC Analysis of the massive 2025 revenue and trade backlog.