Golden Touch? Pelosi's Stock Portfolio Explodes 71 Percent in 2024, Beats Stock Index by 200 Percent

In this episode of "Try to Control Your Shock and Amazement"...

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long been criticized for her seemingly uncanny ability to grow her investment portfolio at dizzyingly high rates of return. Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi have a combined net worth of nearly $250 million. In 2024, they managed to beat the S&P 500 stock index by 200 percent.

According to financial data platform Unusual Whales’ 2024 Congress Trading Report, the Pelosi portfolio grew 70.9 percent between December 29, 2023, and December 30, 2024, beating the S&P 500 stock index by nearly 200 percent in 2024 and continuing their year-over-year streak of outperforming the index.

The Pelosis' 2024 results exceeded their impressive 2023 performance of 65.5 percent, outperforming that year’s S&P 500 return of 24.8 percent by roughly 164 percent.

So what's going on here? The "golden touch" I referenced in the headline? Luck? Insider knowledge about upcoming legislation and policy changes?

Here's more:

Pelosi outdid many of the world’s oldest and largest hedge funds in 2024, including Citadel, which had $66 billion in assets under management as of December, and Discovery Capital, which has been around for over 25 years and had $15 billion in assets under management at its peak. She also outperformed legendary investor Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, more than doubling its 27.1% 2024 return.
Pelosi’s trades are executed on her behalf by her husband, Paul, an investment banker whose strategy largely consists of buying call options — financial contracts that provide buyers with the right to purchase an asset at a predetermined price — in large technology companies after they experience price drops, according to Unusual Whales. The strategy appeared successful in 2024, with Pelosi’s contracts to purchase chipmaker Nvidia finishing the year up 273% and her contracts to purchase cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks up 93% as of Jan. 7.

Hubby Paul might execute the trades, but as a member of Congress, Nancy has for years had access to pending legislation, some of which impacted market performance — up or down.

In January 2023, Pelosi unloaded more than $1.5 million worth of stock in Google’s holding company, Alphabet, just one month before the Justice Department announced an antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant. Just a coincidence? Sure, let's call it that.

Also in January 2023, Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation to prevent elected leaders from owning securities and other investment assets. Hawley brilliantly called his bill the PELOSI Act — Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments. The failed bill would have prohibited members of Congress from trading stock.

Speaking of members of Congress, Pelosi is far from the Lone Ranger with respect to her stellar 2024 portfolio performance. In fact, her results were surpassed by multiple other lawmakers. (Pelosi came in ninth.) As Unusual Whales noted earlier in January, U.S. politicians have outperformed the mark every year since 2020.

🚨BREAKING🚨

I have just released the full report on politicians trading in 2023.

Like every year since 2020, US politicians beat the market.

And many in Congress made unusually timed trades resulting in huge gains.

Here are the top performers of 2023. pic.twitter.com/ykf9VICsBw
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 2, 2024