The mastermind behind esoteric funds like the now-shuttered Inverse Jim Cramer ETF, the Tuttle Capital Short Innovation ETF, (an ETF designed to provide returns inverse of Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF) and leveraged single-stock ETFs for longing and shorting Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet has cooked up a new bet: an ETF built around equities that sitting members of U.S. Congress and/or their spouses have reported invest in through public disclosure filings.
Tuttle Capital Management, headed by CEO and Chief Investment Officer Matthew Tuttle, revealed the Tuttle Capital Congressional Trading ETF in an SEC filing earlier this week. The fund’s goal is to allow investors to mirror the collective investments of members of Congress and their families.
According to the filing, Tuttle will build and adjust the portfolio for the actively managed fund based on monitoring Periodic Transaction Reports that U.S. senators and House members are required to report in compliance with the STOCK Act.
“PTRs are due within 30 days from when a congressperson or their spouse becomes aware of a transaction, but no later than 45 days from the date of the transaction,” according to the filing.
Tuttle will use this information “to determine which equity securities of publicly traded companies, and how much of each equity security, to select for the Fund. The adviser’s selection process for U.S. congresspeople encompasses multiple factors including, but not limited to, the historical performance of their investment returns, the committees on which they serve within Congress, and their seniority. Investors should note that the selection criteria may evolve over time to adapt to changes in legislative dynamics and market conditions.”
The fund will adjust its portfolio as new PTRs are filed.
To create the initial portfolio, Tuttle “will obtain and use information derived by others from PTRs filed by U.S. congresspeople for the past three years. Purchases made during that time will be netted against any sales of the same security to create an initial portfolio of equity securities.”
Tuttle anticipates the portfolio will include around 50 securities, but the number of size and positions will vary based on the congressional trading activity.
Tuttle declined to comment beyond the information in the SEC filing.
The ETF will not be the first based on congressional trading activity, although it will be the first to build portfolios on Congress as a whole. The Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETF (NANC) invests in equity securities purchased or sold by Democratic members of Congress and their spouses while the Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF (KRUZ) tracks Republican members and their spouses.
