The Setup
Congressional stock disclosures are public, and most people read them the wrong way. The instinct is to treat each filing as a tip: Congress bought this, so I should buy it. That misses the point. A single purchase of $15,000 to $50,000 tells you almost nothing about AT&T. What it does tell you is what kind of company a lawmaker with access to policy-level information chose to own [1].
Moore disclosed the purchase on May 19, two days after the transaction [2]. AT&T trades at roughly 10 times earnings, pays a dividend of about 4.3%, and is projected to generate over $18 billion in free cash flow in 2026 [3]. It is a mature, cash-heavy, slow-growing business. Buying it is not a bet on reinvention. It is a bet on steady cash generation during an uncertain market.
The question worth testing: does building a portfolio around that exact financial profile, meaning inexpensive companies with high dividends and strong cash generation, produce better results than simply buying large profitable companies whose share prices are rising?
How to Think About This
The first instinct is to screen for telecom companies, but that is too narrow and it misses the transferable idea. What makes AT&T interesting to a value buyer is not its industry. It is the combination of a low price relative to earnings, a high dividend, and a large amount of free cash flow relative to the share price. Together those three traits describe a company the market has mostly stopped paying attention to, but which keeps generating cash.
That profile catches far more than telecoms. Banks, energy majors, consumer staples and healthcare companies all land in the same bucket when the market rotates away from growth. The question is whether these steady cash generators hold up better than the companies everyone is excited about.
So two strategies were built. The thesis strategy filters for the profile Moore bought into: companies worth $200 billion or more, priced at 12 times earnings or less, paying dividends of at least 3.5%, generating free cash flow of at least 7% of their share price, and earning operating margins of at least 20%. Candidates are ranked 60% on business fundamentals and 40% on share price behaviour.
The control takes the opposite approach. Same size floor, but with easier fundamental requirements, a dividend of at least 2.5% and return on equity of at least 15%, and a ranking weighted 80% toward recent price performance. This is the buy-the-winners strategy. If the congressional thesis has no edge, the control should win comfortably.
| Strategy Name | Filter Focus | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| Congressional Income (Thesis) | P/E ≤ 12, Div ≥ 3.5%, FCF Yield ≥ 7%, OPM ≥ 20% | 60% Fundamental / 40% Momentum |
| Dividend Momentum (Control) | Div ≥ 2.5%, OPM ≥ 25%, FCF Yield ≥ 4%, ROE ≥ 15% | 80% Momentum / 20% Fundamental |
What the Data Revealed
Both strategies ran from January 2022 to May 2026 starting with $100,000, using equal weighting, monthly rebalancing, quarterly reconstitution and realistic trading costs of $0.005 per share commission and 0.1% slippage. The window matters: it begins just before the Federal Reserve started raising rates aggressively. Value and income companies are supposed to shine when rates rise and speculative assets correct, so this was the thesis on trial.
The Congressional Income strategy screened 174 companies and made 180 trades. It returned 1.2% in total, 0.3% a year, and fell 18.6% at its worst point. It won on 47.2% of trades with a profit factor of 1.02. Not exciting. But it survived.
The Dividend Momentum control screened 38 companies, made 46 trades, and lost 8.3% in total, negative 1.9% a year, falling 13.4% at its worst point. It won on 41.3% of trades with a profit factor of 0.69, meaning the losing trades clearly outweighed the winners.
Here is the part worth sitting with: the thesis did not win by finding great companies. It won by avoiding bad ones. The control, chasing recent price performance, kept rotating into companies that had already run up and were due to correct. During the 2022 downturn those favourites were hit hardest. The value screen, by insisting on low prices and strong cash generation, naturally sidestepped the most stretched names. A 1.2% return over four years is nothing to celebrate, but it is 9.5 points better than losing 8.3%.
The thesis also had a much wider universe, 174 companies against 38, and more trades, 180 against 46. That matters. A strategy with more qualifying companies has more room to spread risk, and more trades give the result more statistical weight. The control was concentrated in fewer companies, so each loser did outsized damage.
| Strategy | Total Return | Sharpe | Max DD | Win Rate | Trades |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Congressional Income (Thesis) | +1.2% | -0.31 | 18.6% | 47.2% | 180 |
| Dividend Momentum (Control) | -8.3% | -0.86 | 13.4% | 41.3% | 46 |
What You Can Do With This
The useful takeaway is not to copy a disclosed trade. It is that a disclosure can be read as a thesis you can define, test and improve on your own terms.
Start by describing the financial profile rather than the company. Cheap relative to earnings, generous dividend, strong free cash flow, healthy operating margin. That description is testable across the whole market, while a single ticker is not.
Then check the window you are testing. This thesis looked reasonable across a rate-rising period and would likely look far worse across a speculative boom. Running the same rules across a different stretch of history is the fastest way to find out whether you have discovered something durable or simply described the recent past.
Finally, watch the size of the universe. A screen that qualifies 38 companies is making a much more concentrated bet than one that qualifies 174, whatever its rules say on paper.