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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is notoriously wealthy from massive stock trades while in Congress, but she’s not the only lawmaker cashing in.
Officially, lawmakers are not allowed to trade stocks using information learned on Capitol Hill. But that rule has been hard to enforce.
Congressional stock trades have caught the public eye since the pandemic, when some lawmakers raised eyebrows by selling shortly after closed-door COVID-19 briefings before the stock market crashed.
Pelosi, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Rep. Dan Mueser, D-Pa., Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for example, have all traded over a million dollars in securities this year, according to federal data compiled by politician trade tracker Quiver Quantitative.
In 2012, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was passed to force politicians to disclose their trades.
The act forces officials to publicly disclose their transactions valued over $1,000 within 30 days of receiving notice of the trade and 45 days of the date of the trade. However, it does not require members disclose the exact price of a trade but rather a range.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul at a gala in Washington, D.C. She has been a prolific stock trader in recent years, according to her federal disclosures, having bought or sold $100 million in securities since 2020
Members must report trades made by themselves, their spouse or dependents – and the transparency law has led to a wealth of information about top politicians’ pricey portfolios which can reach up to the tens, if not hundreds, of millions.
DailyMail.com breaks down the top stock trades made by politicians so far in 2024:
Nancy Pelosi: $4 million
Pelosi has a staggering estimated net worth of $250 million, according to Quiver data, and has traded nearly $4 million worth of stock this year, financial records show.
Pelosi, according to disclosures, has purchased $3.93 million worth of securities so far in 2024, much of it in tech, with specific trades in Palo Alto Networks and Forge Investments – a firm that allows investors to get a piece of private companies like OpenAI – of which she disclosed purchasing between $1 – $5 million worth of shares.
‘According to our estimates, Nancy Pelosi has the sixth highest trade volume in Congress over the last year,’ Quiver Quantitative co-founder Christopher Kardatzke exclusively told DailyMail.com.
‘Pelosi doesn’t sit on any House technology committees, but she does represent a district in California which covers San Francisco, so obviously there’s kind of a question there whether she gets any sort of insights from that position that she holds.’
Quiver Quantitative’s congressional trading dashboards highlight the portfolios of politicians
According to data compiled by Quiver, Pelosi’s net worth has doubled in the past decade from $123 million in 2014 to nearly $250 million in 2024
‘The volume is just crazy. It’s often trades of millions of dollars of options or tens of millions of dollars of stock. So obviously that’s a lot of volume,’ Kardatzke said. ‘With Pelosi, it seems like much more intentional, large large bets on particular companies, largely focused in tech.’
Though she does not disclose trade very often, Pelosi does report trades worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars when she does.
One Pelosi’s most famous trades involves Nvidia, a software company that is now the largest in the world by market cap, boasting a total evaluation of $3.3 trillion
Since 2020, Pelosi has reported trades with a total volume of a smidge under $100 million.
And much of that has been in tech companies that reside in her home district San Francisco or 30 minutes south in Silicon Valley.
Since that year, Pelosi’s estimated net worth has ballooned from $175 million to around $250 million.
In 2014, Quiver estimates she had roughly $123 million, meaning she doubled her total net worth in the past decade.
One of Pelosi’s potentially most profitable trades came in November 2023, when she disclosed purchases up to $5 million of AI software giant Nvidia.
Still, it should also be noted that Pelosi’s husband, Paul, who was famously attacked with a hammer in 2022, is a venture capitalist and real estate mogul who is surely plugged into the market and its nuances.
All of the trades disclosures submitted for Nancy Pelosi’s required filings are actually carried out by her husband, the documents say.
This is common on Capitol Hill as a lot of members blame their wives or outside financial managers for their trades.
Unless they put their assets in a blind trust, the public has no way of knowing that they didn’t make a call to a family member or money manager to have them move assets around. The only law regulating congressional trades is the STOCK Act.
Nancy Pelosi’s November 2023 financial disclosures reveal a significant purchase of Nvidia. That trade has seen a 178 percent increase in value since
Since making that trade the stock has risen upwards of 170 percent – and the company has since been valued as the largest corporation in the world, reaching a market cap of $3.3 trillion in mid June.
According to estimates from Quiver, Pelosi has made over $17 million this year off of her reported portfolio, which is close to 100x her annual salary as a House member.
The salary for congressional lawmakers like Pelosi is $174,000 a year, which many members say is too low to maintain houses in their home district and in D.C.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., the data firm estimates, is worth a cool $47.2 million
Rep. Josh Gottheimer: $46.2 million
In 2024, Gottheimer has traded over $46.2 million worth of stock.
But even more astonishing is how many trades he has disclosed since first entering Congress in 2017.
Since that year, the New Jersey Democrat had bought and sold $277 million dollars worth of securities on a total of just under 2,700 reported transactions.
The volume of trades is incredible given that Quiver estimates that his net worth is $47.2 million. Meaning he has traded his entire worth several times over – making a large profit.
In 2017, when he entered Congress, estimates show Gottheimer was worth just $9 million. If those estimates are correct, the Democrat has more than tripled his net worth in his seven years on the Hill.
Stocks and options on tech companies appear to make up the majority of his portfolio.
He has major holdings in Microsoft, where he used to work, and Apple.
Gottheimer has reported trading over $277 million worth of securities since 2017
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is estimated to be worth a total of $326 million, according to Quiver Quantitative
Sen. Rick Scott: $26.4 million
Scott has traded $26.35 million in 2024 alone.
Interestingly, his disclosures do not indicate that he has traded any individual stocks this year.
Instead, the Florida Senator who has an estimated net worth over $320 million, has bought and sold municipal bonds and securities in areas all over the country.
His net worth has not fluctuated much since he joined Congress in 2019.
He has invested money up to $500,000 Washington, D.C.’s transit authority, for example, and a similar amount in Ohio state water developments.
His transactions this year cover areas from El Paso, Texas to New York City to Portland, Oregon.
Scott mostly trades municipal securities, not individual stocks
Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., has an estimated net worth of around $40 million, according to Quiver
Rep. Dan Meuser: $1.2 million
Meuser has disclosed transactions of $1.19 million this year, exclusively in the form of tech company Nvidia and U.S. Treasury bills.
Quiver estimates that he is worth $40 million with the majority of his wealth coming from ownership interested in a Pennsylvania mobility scooter company called Pride Mobility.
He has sold at least $280,000 in Nvidia stock this year.
In 2019, the Pennsylvania Republican was estimated to have been worth around $35.5 million, according to Quiver.
He has traded a total of $2.5 million worth of securities since takin office.
Meuser has only traded U.S. Treasury bills and Nvidia in 2024
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has traded over a million dollars worth of securities in 2024, much of it coming from stocks and government issued securities
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: $1.3 million
In 2024, Greene has traded $1.33 million. Since getting into office in 2020, she has reported trades totaling $2.93 million.
According to estimates from Quiver Quantitative, the Georgia Republican is worth a total of $22.1 million, most of that coming from ownership interest in a family company.
Before taking office, Greene joined her father’s contracting company Taylor Commercial where she served as a vice president. Much of her wealth appear to stem from her holdings in that company.
Disclosures reveal she owns millions of dollars worth of Taylor Commercial.
She also has a variety of stock holdings, ranging from Home Depot, construction equipment Caterpillar, Tractor Supply Company, and tech companies Apple and Qualcomm.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is estimated to have a net worth of $22 million, according to Quiver
Other eyebrow-raising trades in recent years
Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul, meanwhile, was the architect behind a bill that became law that now threaten’s TikTok’s existence in the U.S.
At the same time he was hawking the bill to his colleagues, in March, he purchased between $580,000 and $1.15 million in stock of TikTok’s biggest competitor, Meta. There was also a sale in March by McCaul for between $250,000 and $500,000.
The purchases happened in family trust set up under his wife’s name.
In March, there were 10 separate Meta purchases by the McCaul family after a year-long streak of Meta sales.
The trades that raise the most eyebrows, according to Kardatzke, are the ones by members who trade in sectors overseen by committees they sit on.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., purchased stock in a defense company while sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees military funding
Mullin’s purchase of defense stock RTX has been lucrative as it has risen roughly 39 percent since he bought it back in September 2023
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., for example, sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees U.S. military affairs such as funding, weapons development and troop readiness.
He reported buying thousands of dollars in military tech company RTX, formerly Raytheon – which manufactures equipment for Israel’s iron dome – in September 2023. Since his purchase, the share price has risen nearly 40 percent.
Interestingly, RTX was also a large beneficiary of the recent $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the details of which Mullin had oversight.
Instances where lawmakers trade in sectors overseen by their committees is not uncommon for Democrats and Republicans.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, for example, purchased stock in medical device company Artivion in November 2023.
The share price has risen over 40 percent since.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., purchased stock in a medical device company while sitting on the Senate panel overseeing the department of Health and Human Services
Smith’s reported stake in medical company Artivion has risen over 70 percent since
And Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has also made many trades in medical, defense and commodity companies while sitting on the Senate Armed Services, Health and Agricultural Committees.
‘Senator Tommy Tuberville has made a ton of options [trades] and futures trades in the commodity space, where we’ve seen him trade millions of dollars of stuff like cattle and soy bean futures while sitting on the Senate subcommittee on commodities,’ Kardatzke said.
‘He’s claimed that his portfolio was managed by like an advisor, but just based off the fact that so much of his trading seems to be in companies that he directly oversees it seems a little bit hard to believe that he doesn’t have some sort of influence or impact on the trades that are being made.’
Tuberville is ‘definitely one that stands out,’ he added.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has claimed that banning stock trading for members would disincentivize qualified candidates for running for office
Tuberville caught attention on social media for trading an obscure medical company called Humanactye in March. After the stock skyrocketed in value, disclosure reveal he sold and took a profit
The Alabama Republican who was a college football coach for decades now boasts a net worth estimated to be around $12 million, according to Quiver estimates
Despite lawmakers having direct power over companies they regulate, they are allowed to invest in these companies with impunity should they report their transactions within the 30 – 45 day disclosure period mandated by the Stock Act.
Smith’s trades also caught his attention for the same reason – she has seen significant gains in stocks that she directly regulates.
And her stake in the medical firm Artivion is ‘obviously in an industry that the politician definitely oversees,’ he said.
Particularly condemnable is the petty fee that lawmakers face should they not disclose their trades within the appropriate timespan.
Should a lawmaker fail to disclose their trades on time, which often range from thousands to millions of dollars per transaction, the penalty is generally a meager $200 for each infraction.
That is chump change for certain lawmakers who have assets totaling millions.
More recently Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Committee on Small Business purchased Nvidia stock in 2019 but only just disclosed the purchase on June 12 of this year.
The share price had risen 3270 percent between the time he bought and sold.
And sixteen months after his wife bought between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in Gilead, which makes an antiviral drug that is used to treat COVID-19, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., finally disclosed that trade.
The initial stock buy occurred on February 26, 2020, just before the pandemic swept the nation. It was the same week lawmakers got a closed-door briefing from White House officials on the deadly virus. The trade was disclosed in August 2021.
Is accountability coming?
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Justice launched investigations into a few eyebrow-raising trades, but no charges followed.
The effort to ban trades gained momentum through 2022, with Pelosi eventually reversing course and saying she would move stock ban legislation.
She never followed through on that promise, however. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took over and he didn’t either – even though he had prodded Pelosi to take up stock ban legislation in the prior Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has no plans to move on such legislation in the near future. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also expressed support for such legislation in 2022, but has been quiet about it ever since.
Banning stock trading for members ‘would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve’ Tuberville said in a 2022 interview
House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., who’s panel is in charge of handling STOCK Act violations, violated the law in 2021 after reporting trades months late
Further, the panel tasked with enforcing STOCK Act violations – the House and Senate Ethics Committees – have also dabbled in violating the law themselves.
Stunningly, four out of 10 of the House Ethics Committee members have violated the STOCK Act – including its chairman Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., who failed to report trades made in January 2021 until late October of that year.
‘It’s funny, because the House Ethics Committee is the committee in charge of enforcement STOCK Act. I mean, we’ve actually caught several members of violating the Stock Act themselves,’ Kardatzke told DailyMail.com.
‘It seems it’s kind of being taken as a joke of a regulation where it’s a rule that’s in place, but the punishments and penalties for it aren’t really severe enough for anybody to take it that seriously.’
He added there have been instances where politicians seem to be engaging in ‘gamesmanship’ where they ‘wait to disclose trades till a more politically convenient time.’
The Quiver Quantitative cofounder also told DailyMail.com that something in Congress needs to change to ensure that lawmakers don’t have conflicts of interest when it comes to regulating companies from which they can profit.
‘It should be kind of a no brainer that somebody who sits on like a committee on commodities shouldn’t be able to trade millions of dollars of commodities futures, or somebody who sits on the Armed Services Committee shouldn’t be able to trade large amounts of like Lockheed Martin or Raytheon stock.’
Then again, Kardatzke noted, just look at what the lawmakers themselves have said.
When pressed on whether stock trading should be banned for members in 2022, Tuberville said the idea was ‘ridiculous’ and that such a measure ‘would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve.’
‘We don’t need that,’ he added.
