Sources and Methods
Where the numbers on DaveManuel.com come from, how often each page is refreshed, how the net worth estimates are built, and how changes are recorded.
01Who Runs the Site
DaveManuel.com is written and run by Dave Manuel, who has traded stocks and options since 1997. The site covers markets, government finances, taxes, retirement and politics, and its data pages are built from official government sources wherever one exists.
02Where the Data Comes From
| Source | Used for | Refreshed |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Treasury | The national debt (Debt to the Penny), foreign holders of Treasuries (TIC), tariff revenue (Fiscal Data) and sanctions (OFAC) | Daily to monthly |
| Bureau of Labor Statistics | The inflation calculator and national and state unemployment | Monthly |
| Federal Election Commission | The midterm money tracker and billionaire political donors | Daily |
| Department of Labor | The 401(k) Plan Lookup, from Form 5500 filings | Monthly |
| IRS and Canada Revenue Agency | 401(k), IRA, TFSA, RRSP and FHSA contribution limits | Yearly |
| SEC EDGAR | Net worth estimates (proxy statements and insider filings) and company data | As filed |
| House and Senate disclosures | The congressional stock trading tracker | Daily |
| Statistics Canada and FRED | Housing starts and population | Monthly |
| EIA, USGS and IMF PortWatch | Electricity prices, earthquakes and shipping chokepoints | Live to monthly |
Every data page also names its own sources, under Sources near the bottom and in its Cite This Page section.
03How Pages Stay Current
Automatic updates. Pages built on live government data pull new figures on a schedule, from every ten minutes for the midterm odds tracker to once a month for Treasury holdings. Each page shows when its data was last updated.
Nightly change check. Every night each data page and the data files behind it are compared with the night before. When anything has changed, the page's last-updated date moves and search engines are notified.
Weekly review. Every Special Features page and every net worth profile is reviewed each week against its sources for new filings, new official figures and anything that has gone out of date.
Dated figures only. Numbers that change, such as a share price or a net worth, are always shown with the date they apply to, so a page never presents an old figure as current.
04How the Net Worth Estimates Are Built
Each estimate is a sum of the parts: every holding is valued separately from public records and the values are added up. Stock is counted from the person's latest SEC filings and valued at a stated day's closing price. Private companies are valued from their most recent priced deals, and real estate at reported purchase prices unless a better valuation is public. Cash from past stock sales is counted after estimated taxes.
Where a number is uncertain, the page gives a range and explains what drives it, and it shows the Forbes and Bloomberg figures next to ours with the reason they differ. Estimates from sites that do not show their sources are never used.
05Standards
| Official sources first | A government filing or dataset is used over a news report whenever one exists; news reports are used for context and named. |
| Checked before publishing | New data pages and net worth profiles are fact-checked against their sources before they go live, and existing pages are checked again in the weekly review. |
| Ranges, not false precision | When the inputs are estimates, the result is shown as a range. |
| No ads | The site does not run ads. Some pages carry affiliate links; they never affect the figures. |
06Updates and Corrections
Corrections to figures on published pages, with the date and what changed.
| Date | Page | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 23, 2026 | 2026 Midterm Money Tracker | Outside spending now includes the 24/48-hour independent expenditure notices filed with the FEC as well as regular reports, bringing the outside total to $3.01 billion. Each race now shows its general-election matchup. |
Most recently updated pages:
| Updated | Page |
|---|---|
| Oct 23, 2026 | 2026 Midterm Money Tracker |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Canada Debt Clock |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Canadian Tax Dollars Breakdown |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Congressional Stock Trading Tracker |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Dana White Net Worth |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Elon Musk Net Worth |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Historical State Unemployment Rates |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Historical Unemployment Rates in the United States |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Inflation Calculator |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Live Earthquake Tracker |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Median Household Income |
| Oct 23, 2026 | Midterm Polls and Prediction Markets Tracker |
07Citing DaveManuel.com
Every data page ends with ready-made citations in plain, APA, Chicago and Wikipedia formats, with the date the page was last updated. See Citing DaveManuel.com on the About page.