Paul Pelosi Grabs More Stock Options in Amid Spotlight on Congressional Stock Trades

I have to hand it to Paul Pelosi, the man clearly has no fear of ever being brought up on charges of inside trading.

After making numerous questionable trades of companies where his wife, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had oversight, he just grabbed another 50 blocks of options on Nvidia.

Like many of his other options, Nvidia is a company that could benefit from massive government contracts in the AI sector.

No Fear

The stock purchase came to light on Friday evening, what we typically like to call a news dump which is meant to miss the cycle by getting buried on the Friday evening before a long holiday weekend.

If my math is correct, the Pelosis stand to add another $10 million or so to their net worth of about $140 million.

In November, Pelosi purchased 50 options with a strike price of $120 on Nvidia, which is currently trading close to $500 per share.

The options expire on December 20, 2024, so if Nvidia lands a fat contract, there is no telling what the value of that stock will be by then, with every penny over $120 being a profit for Pelosi.

Sadly, they are far from being alone in doing this, as there are almost 100 members of Congress who are pretty savvy stock traders, and this would include members on both sides of the aisle.

To that point, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) ranks as one of the top traders in Congress in terms of net profit.

This is a man who spent his career in the Navy as a SEAL operator, which I respect. What I am trying to figure out, however, is how Crenshaw managed to build up a net worth of more than $2 million after two terms in Congress.

He did have a very successful book, but that only accounts for about 20% of his overall net worth.

Crenshaw has not made significant trades as Pelosi does, but he has been very successful. His office says it is no big deal because the information is public and he is only dabbling, with most of his trades being under $15,000.

His office responded, “These are incredibly low dollar amounts being traded, especially when you put them in context with other members who trade huge sums of money in the stock market.

“All of these trades were made using publicly available, well-reported information. The claim that there is any conflict of interest behind these transactions is absurd.”

Senators Ossoff (D-GA) and Kelly (D-AZ) have presented legislation in the Senate to block members of Congress from being able to trade, and there is similar legislation in the House, only neither of them will probably ever see the floor.

That would be because this is what serving in today’s government is all about… getting information to get rich in the markets and writing a few books to make millions because it surely is no longer about representing We the People.