Table 2.

Summary statistics

	Mean	Std. Dev	Minimum	Median	Maximum
	[1]	[2]	[3]	[4]	[5]
$ Effective Spread	0.0175	0.0254	0.0073	0.0102	0.2175
% Effective Spread	0.0003	0.0004	0.0001	0.0002	0.0041
Ask Depth	21,735	56,435	202	3,801	600,195
Bid Depth	21,714	56,276	199	3,802	508,737
$ Price Impact	0.0086	0.0155	− 0.0180	0.0053	0.1595
% Price Impact	0.0001	0.0001	− 0.0005	0.0001	0.0019
Illiquidity	0.0003	0.0029	0.0000	0.0000	0.0535
Garch(1,1)	0.0121	0.0035	0.0043	0.0114	0.0315
Range Volatility	0.0144	0.0068	0.0031	0.0130	0.0502
Noise	0.0071	0.0044	0.0000	0.0064	0.0371
Price	88.74	125.05	11.81	56.89	814.71
MCAP	131.29	89.73	0.32	111.30	435.33
Turnover	0.0064	0.0064	0.0010	0.0048	0.1371

The table reports statistics that describe the sample of 49 securities most held by Congressional democrats and republicans during the 41-day window surrounding the STOCK act amendment on April 15, 2013. $ Effective Spread on the kth trade is defined as: $2D_k\left(P_k,-,M_k\right),$ where $D_k$ is an indicator variable that equals + 1 if the kth trade is a buy and − 1 if the kth trade is a sell, $P_k$ is the price of the kth trade (according to Lee and Ready 1991), and $M_k$ is the midpoint of the NBBO quotes assigned to the kth trade. % Effective Spread is the dollar effective spread scaled by the NBBO midpoint. Ask Depth is the number of shares available at the NBO at the time of the kth trade. Bid Depth is the number of shares available at the NBB at the time of the kth trade. $ Price Impact on the kth trade is defined as: $2D_k\left(M_{k+5},-,M_k\right)$, where $M_{k+5}$ is the midpoint 5-min after the midpoint $M_k$. % Price Impact is the dollar price impact scaled by the NBBO midpoint. Illiq is Amihud’s (2002) illiquidity measure defined as the absolute value of daily return divided by dollar volume, scaled by 10⁶. Garch Volatility is the volatility of stock returns obtained by fitting returns to a Garch (1,1) model. Range Volatility is measured as the log of the daily high ask price minus the log of the daily low bid price. When an open price is greater (less) than the closing price, Noise is the sum of the difference between the intraday high price less the open price (closing price) and the closing price (opening price) less the intraday low price, scaled by the midpoint between the open price and the closing price. Price is the average daily closing price. MCAP is the market capitalization, or price times shares outstanding (in $ billions). Turnover is the daily number of shares traded over shares outstanding