Donald Trump’s stock trades reached 1,156 transactions in July – almost 40 times the number disclosed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for the whole of 2025.
The transactions, made through accounts in the president’s name, included 440 purchases and 716 sales, according to a filing with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). Their combined value was estimated at between $79 million and $270 million, although the filing did not state the precise value of each trade.
By comparison, Bessent reported 29 transactions during 2025. All were sales, including disposals of interests connected to Key Square, the hedge fund he founded in 2015 before joining the administration.
The Treasury Secretary also sold individual holdings in Verizon and Archer-Daniels-Midland. A stake in JPMorgan Chase owned by his husband, John Freeman, had initially been recorded as a deposit account and was later corrected, the filing said.
Bessent agreed to sell assets that could create conflicts with his official responsibilities when he accepted the Treasury role.
Questions over Trump stock trades
The scale of the Trump stock trades has increased during his second term. A previous OGE disclosure showed that accounts linked to the president recorded more than 21,000 transactions during his first year back in office.
A White House spokesperson has said the president’s assets are held in a trust overseen by his children. The administration has also attributed the high volume of activity to third-party computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognised indexes, including the Schwab 1000.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Federal conflict-of-interest law, under 18 US Code 208, generally prevents federal officials from taking actions affecting their personal financial interests. The provision does not apply to the president or vice-president.
It is unusual for a president to retain ownership of an actively traded portfolio of individual securities while in office, according to Walter Shaub, the former director of the OGE. In remarks made in 2017, he said all modern presidents since the Ethics in Government Act was passed in 1978 had either adopted a blind trust or restricted their investments to non-conflicting assets such as diversified mutual funds.
Shortly before resigning as OGE director during Trump’s first term, Shaub told the Brookings Institution that the president’s proposed approach to managing his finances “doesn’t meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every president in the past four decades has met.”
The volume and timing of some of the transactions have also drawn criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Robert Garcia. In a letter to Trump, they said the activity raised questions about whether he was using knowledge of government actions, his official authority or the reach of the presidency to benefit his investments.
At the same time, the Trump administration has backed legislation restricting stock trading by members of Congress and their families. It said in July that it “strongly supports” the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would prohibit them from buying shares in companies while serving in office.
The House has passed the bill, which remains under consideration in the Senate. Some Democratic lawmakers opposed it because it also contains new identification requirements for voting in federal elections, while its trading restrictions would not cover the president or vice-president.
