Michael McCaul showed up at a Taiwan economic reception alongside Nancy Pelosi recently, schmoozing about trade ties and looking every bit the senior foreign policy hand he's spent two decades positioning himself to be. But while McCaul was pressing flesh on behalf of cross-Pacific commerce, his brokerage account was running its own foreign policy: 71 disclosed trades in 90 days, a pace that works out to roughly one trade every 38 hours of the congressional calendar. The public filings are there for anyone who wants to read them. We read them.
The Taiwan Photo-Op and the Portfolio Behind It
The Bluesky chatter this week put McCaul at a reception hosted by a Taiwanese delegation, standing next to Pelosi, touting economic ties. McCaul's actual turf is the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he handles East Asia and Pacific policy, plus Homeland Security. Taiwan fits squarely in that lane. The trading portfolio is a separate conversation.
In the last two weeks of April alone, McCaul's disclosures logged purchases in Teradyne ($TER, $15K–$50K), Intuit ($INTU), Danaher ($DHR), S&P Global ($SPGI), Mastercard ($MA), Workday ($WDAY), and Pandora ($P), alongside sales of Vulcan Materials ($VMC), GE Vernova ($GEV), Mastercard again — bought and sold $MA inside 48 hours — Visa ($V), and Shell ($SHEL). On April 24 he picked up $15K–$50K of EQT, a domestic natural gas producer, while simultaneously selling Shell at the same size.
Members are required to disclose. They are not required to divest, recuse, or abstain.
The Alpha Record, Honestly Stated
Blind Trust has scored 119 of McCaul's trades on directional outcomes. Fifty-two of those scored positive — a 43.7% win rate, below coin-flip. The mean trade isn't generating excess returns. For a member whose filing pace suggests close attention to market timing, 52 wins out of 119 is a number worth sitting with.
Frequency and performance are telling different stories, and anyone attributing congressional insight to this portfolio should check the denominator first.
The Votes: Banking, Not Foreign Affairs
McCaul's most market-relevant recent floor votes landed on May 20, when he voted Yea on the American Access to Banking Act (H.R. 4544), the Community Bank Deposit Access Act of 2025 (H.R. 5317), and the Keeping Deposits Local Act (H.R. 3234), all of which passed.
McCaul sits on Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security. Banking regulation belongs to the Financial Services Committee. These were floor votes for a member with no formal oversight role on the underlying subject matter. Blind Trust's data flags zero vote-trade overlaps on these bills, consistent with what the committee assignments show. A floor vote outside your committee is just a vote.
He also voted Yea on the FISA extension (H.R. 9238) in June — that one did touch his Homeland Security seat — and was Not Voting on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
The Buy-Sell Carousel
The Mastercard move deserves its own paragraph. On April 28, McCaul filed a purchase of Mastercard ($MA) in the $1K–$15K range. On April 27, one day earlier by filing date, he also filed a sale of Mastercard in the same size range. Disclosure filing dates don't always track execution dates precisely, but the two transactions are on consecutive calendar days — a round trip in the window where most people are still deciding whether to open a position.
He ran a similar pattern on energy: bought EQT on April 24, sold Shell ($SHEL) on the same date. EQT is a domestic natural gas producer. Shell is an international integrated oil major. The same-day swap in the same size range, by a member who sits on committees with jurisdiction over foreign energy relationships, is at minimum a filing worth reading twice.
The filing shows what it shows. The interpretation is yours.
71 Trades. 90 Days. The Pace Is the Story.
Most members who trade actively file somewhere between a handful and a few dozen disclosures per quarter. Seventy-one in 90 days puts McCaul in the top tier by volume alone, ahead of colleagues who get far more scrutiny for far fewer trades. The trades span sectors with no obvious unifying thesis: semiconductors (Teradyne), enterprise software (Workday, Intuit), financial data (S&P Global), payments (Mastercard, Visa), construction materials (Vulcan Materials), industrials (GE Vernova), and energy (EQT, Shell).
A diversified household portfolio managed by a broker, or something else — Blind Trust doesn't decide that. The public record is 71 lines long and available to anyone. What are the odds any of this gets a second look from the House Ethics Committee? Computable. What are the odds it shapes McCaul's next Taiwan photo-op? Lower.
The receipts are public. Make of them what you make of them.