Trump Logged 1,156 Trades in July—Nearly 40 Times Bessent's 2025 Total

President Donald Trump's financial accounts executed 1,156 transactions in July alone—nearly 40 times the 29 trades that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a Wall Street veteran with decades of experience, disclosed for all of 2025.

Trump disclosed the July activity earlier this week in a report filed with the Office of Government Ethics. The filing covers accounts held in his name and includes 440 purchases and 716 sales. A Fortune analysis of the report put the total value of the transactions at between $79 million and $270 million. The exact dollar amount associated with each trade was not disclosed.

Bessent's 29 disclosed transactions for 2025 were all sales, according to an Office of Government Ethics report. Several involved his interests in entities tied to Key Square, the hedge fund he founded in 2015 and left to join the administration. Others were sales of individual stock in companies such as Verizon and Archer-Daniels-Midland. The report also noted a correction: a JPMorgan Chase stake owned by Bessent's husband, John Freeman, had previously been reported inadvertently as a deposit account. Bessent agreed to divest assets that could conflict with his role when he became Treasury secretary.

A White House spokesperson previously told Fortune that the president's assets sit in a trust managed by his children. The spokesperson attributed the large number of transactions to third-party "computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000." The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune's request for comment.

The comparison illustrates an unusual legal asymmetry. Federal conflict-of-interest law, 18 U.S. Code 208, bars most federal officials from acts affecting a personal financial interest—but it does not apply to the president or vice president.

Trump's trading volume has accelerated during his second term. A disclosure filed with the OGE showed his accounts recorded more than 21,000 transactions during his first year back in office, according to Bloomberg.

Modern presidents have historically taken a different path. Since Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, every modern president has either adopted a blind trust or limited investments to non-conflicting assets such as diversified mutual funds, Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, said in 2017 remarks. Months before resigning as OGE director during Trump's first term, Shaub said at the Brookings Institution that Trump's plan for handling his finances in office "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 scale of trading has drawn fire from Capitol Hill. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) wrote to Trump: "The sheer volume of this trading activity and the timing of a number of transactions, raise questions about whether you are using your knowledge of government activities, your official authority, or the vast megaphone provided by the Presidency to make investments or move markets to your personal benefit…"

At the same time, Trump has backed new restrictions on congressional trading. In July, his administration said it "strongly supports" the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would prohibit members of Congress and their families from buying stock in individual companies while in office. Some Democratic lawmakers opposed the bill over a provision imposing new ID requirements for voting in federal elections. The House passed the bill this summer; the Senate is still considering it.

The bill's trading restrictions would not apply to the president and vice president—leaving Trump's trust, and its model portfolios, outside the rules he wants Congress to follow.