Rep. David Taylor of Ohio's 2nd district is in the financial press this week for all the reasons a sitting congressman probably prefers to avoid: Benzinga flagged his Alphabet purchase, Investing.com catalogued his full rotation across tech and retail, and now 16 disclosed trades in 90 days are sitting in the public record waiting to be read. So let's read them.
The Alphabet Situation
The trade that caught Benzinga's attention: Taylor bought Alphabet (GOOGL) in a range that public filings put at over $5,000. Then, on May 15, he sold it. Twice. One sale in the $15K-$50K range, a second in the $1K-$15K range, both on the same day.
So the headline calling it a "purchase" is accurate. The part the headline didn't have room for: he also sold a separate Alphabet position out the same week. Two transactions in, two transactions out, and the net effect on his Alphabet exposure is anyone's guess because congressional disclosures don't require members to tell you their remaining balance. They just have to tell you something happened. They told us something happened.
Apple got the same treatment on May 15. One sale, $1K-$15K range. Gone.
The Home Depot Maneuver
Here's the trade that earns its own section. On April 27, Taylor filed two Home Depot (HD) transactions on the same day: a sale in the $1K-$15K range, and a purchase in the $1K-$15K range. Sold Home Depot. Bought Home Depot. One day.
Then on May 15, he bought Home Depot again.
The April 27 HD sale is also his single worst disclosed trade in the scored sample. Public filings show that position generated negative 13.1% alpha over the following 30 days, meaning the stock went up after he sold it. He then bought it back. Whether that was the plan or the correction is not something filings disclose. The filings just record the transactions.
Worth adding: the worst trade in his entire scored record is a Medpace Holdings (MEDP) sale from January 16 at negative 28.5% alpha. He sold MEDP at a bad time then, and on May 15 he purchased MEDP again. The same ticker, twice, on opposite sides, months apart. The filings don't explain the thesis. They never do.
What the Full Record Actually Shows
Across 93 scored trades in Taylor's full disclosure record on Blind Trust, he's positive on 50 and negative on 43. Mean 30-day alpha across the sample: plus 1.3%. That's 50-for-93. A coin flip with a slight lean.
The 1.3% mean sounds good until you look at what's pulling it up. His best single trade in the scored sample: a Lam Research (LRCX) purchase from March 12, 2026 that printed positive 21.2% alpha over 30 days. Second best: an Amgen (AMGN) purchase from January 16 at plus 16.5%. Third: an AT&T (T) purchase from January 29 at plus 16.4%.
Here's the thing about those winners: none of them carry a committee overlap. Taylor sits on the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Lam Research makes semiconductor equipment. Amgen makes biologics. AT&T runs fiber and wireless. None of those sectors touch his actual committee remit. The good trades are just trades, not a story about oversight use.
The worst trades are also outside his committees. The MEDP blowup, the HD whiff, a Kroger (KR) sale on March 24 that produced negative 13.3% alpha. No committee overlap on any of them.
The record, in full: slightly above a coin flip, driven by a few outlier wins, dragged by a handful of real losers, with no flagged committee conflicts anywhere in the dataset.
What He Bought on April 27 Instead
When Taylor sold Broadcom (AVGO), Home Depot (the first time), and Lam Research (LRCX) on April 27, the money went somewhere. Public filings show four purchases that day: Procter & Gamble (PG), Progressive (PGR), Visa (V), and the Home Depot repurchase already mentioned.
That's a rotation out of semiconductor-adjacent names and into consumer staples, insurance, and payments. Read into that what you will about what he thought was coming in late April. The S&P 500 had a rough stretch in that window. The move into PG and V looks, in hindsight, more defensive than the AVGO and LRCX exits. Whether the timing was intentional portfolio construction or routine rebalancing is not something disclosures answer.
The March Anchor
One trade sits alone in the March data: a purchase of Installed Building Products (IBP) on March 24, range $1K-$15K. IBP is a residential insulation installer. Taylor sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which covers highways, transit, railroads, pipelines, water resources, and environment. Residential insulation is adjacent enough to construction that the committee assignment matters, but IBP's core business is new-home insulation contracting. It's a homebuilding-cycle play more than a federal infrastructure play. The committee note is context, not a conflict flag. No overlap is coded in the dataset.
The Votes This Week
Taylor's most market-relevant recent votes came on May 20, when the House passed a cluster of banking bills. He voted Yea on the American Access to Banking Act, the Community Bank Deposit Access Act of 2025, and the Keeping Deposits Local Act. All three passed. All three carry market relevance scores above 80 in our dataset.
His committee assignments are Agriculture and Transportation. Banking regulation lives at Financial Services. These were floor votes, not committee votes, which means there's no oversight angle to draw. Every member of the House voted on those bills. Taylor voted with the majority. His financial disclosures show no banking-sector trades in the relevant window. The vote-trade overlap table for Taylor is empty.
He also voted Yea on a FISA extension bill on June 11 that failed. No trades touching surveillance-adjacent tech names appear in the 90-day window around that vote.
The System, as Designed
Members are required to disclose within 45 days of a transaction. They are not required to explain the trade, disclose their remaining position size, state a thesis, or sit out votes on sectors they're trading. The STOCK Act made the filings public. It left the interpretation to whoever bothers to look.
Taylor filed 16 trades in 90 days. The press noticed this week. The filings were available the whole time.
The receipts are public. Make of them what you make of them.