Former House Speaker Pelosi used to hold the reins of power. Now she’s sneaking through some backroom deals.
But Nancy Pelosi is sweating bullets after this skeleton fell out of her closet.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s net worth is reaching $250 million as the stock market rises, and pressure is mounting on the California Democrat and others in Congress to prohibit lawmakers from engaging in private stock trades.
Quiver Quantitative, which records lawmakers’ financial trading, projected that Mrs. Pelosi earned $8.87 million in the stock market in the first half of May alone, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average temporarily surpassed 40,000 points for the first time.
Mrs. Pelosi’s portfolio increased by an incredible 65% in 2023. The average return on the S&P 500 index last year was about 23%. Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the United States, was down 7.6%.
The performance of certain lawmakers’ stock portfolios has skyrocketed, prompting The Daily Show guest host Jon Stewart to criticize it.
“How do they do it? The secret is an understanding of the intricate interconnectivity of global markets — I’m kidding. They have inside information,” Mr. Stewart said.
Mrs. Pelosi’s spokeswoman said she had no reaction.
Critics claim Mrs. Pelosi and other members of Congress profit from inside knowledge of legislation that is likely to affect stock prices, such as the CHIPS Act, which was passed in 2022 and offered billions of dollars in subsidies for semiconductor production in the United States.
Mrs. Pelosi and her husband, Paul, sold their 25,000 shares of chipmaker Nvidia for a $700,000 loss around the time Congress passed the CHIPS Act.
According to the trade news website Unusual Whales, they later purchased Nvidia call options, their greatest trading purchase in the previous three years.
Although Mrs. Pelosi receives the majority of the attention for congressional stock movements, notably from an X account called Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker, she was only the ninth most successful congressperson in stock trading in 2023. Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democrat from New York, had the most success, with his portfolio increasing by 239%.
Another notable trading move came from Maryland Democrat Rep. David Trone, who filed a financial statement last week disclosing buys and sells totaling over $97 million in U.S. Treasury notes last year.
Mr. Trone, who founded a network of wine and alcohol businesses, submitted the statement the day after losing the Democratic Senate primary to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. He had invested more than $60 million of his riches in the primary campaign.
His trades were subholdings of Mr. Trone’s joint J.P. Morgan account, and they included up to $100,000 in PepsiCo stock that his wife sold in November.
Treasury bills are not subject to the STOCK Act of 2012’s reporting rules, which require politicians to declare trades within 45 days. The Pepsi transaction appears to be a violation. The penalty is a $200 cost paid to the government.
A spokesperson for Mr. Trone stated that he followed the law.
“Rep. Trone disclosed all information relating to these transactions that the rules require, and the [Ethics] Committee staff received notice and a copy of the [periodic transaction reporting] filing, as well as his full financial disclosure statement, in advance of their filing,” Trone Communications Director Sasha Galbreath told The Washington Times.
Last year, several legislators performed poorly on the stock market. Rep. Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican, lost 77% of his ownership in Workhorse, an electric car business whose stock price plunged by 80%.
According to Unusual Whales, the top ten stock purchases by lawmakers in 2023 were ConocoPhillips ($2.5 million), followed by Apple, Tyson Foods, Microsoft, Alphabet, PayPal, NGL Energy Partners, Bayer AG, CVS, and Arista Networks.
Mrs. Pelosi was a strident opponent of legislation prohibiting members from engaging in individual stock dealings while she was speaker.
“We’re a free market economy. [Members of Congress] should be able to participate in that,” she said.
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