Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is one of the many members of Congress who has been targeted with talks of new legislation to ban members of office and their spouses from trading stocks and options. A new filing shows Pelosi and husband Paul Pelosi's recent trades.
Pelosi's Latest Trades: Pelosi and husband Paul, who is a venture capitalist, could lose the right to trade stocks and options if Congress passes new legislation banning the activity.
Until then, the Pelosis will likely be the center of focusing on congressional trading activity.
A recent filing by Pelosi shared by Congresstrading on Twitter shows trades in four stocks.
The Pelosis exercised 200 calls of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) on Sept. 16. The calls with a strike of $100 were purchased on Dec. 17, 2021 and had an expiration of Sept. 16, 2022. The trade was valued at $1 million to $5 million, according to the filing.
The Pelosis sold 100 calls of Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) with a strike price of $50. The options were bought on Dec. 21, 2021 and had an expiration of Sept. 16, 2022.
The Pelosis sold 50 calls of NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA). The options were purchased on July 23, 2021 and had an expiration date of Sept. 16, 2022.
The Pelosis saw 50 call options of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) purchased Dec. 17, 2021 expire worthless on Sept. 16, 2022. The options had a strike price of $130.
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Why It’s Important: One of the biggest pieces of information from the new comments added for three of the trades (Micron, Nvidia, Disney) that detail losses on the transactions.
The Micron options were sold with a total loss of $392,575, according to the filing. The Nvidia options were sold with a loss of $361,476. The Disney options that expired worthless saw a loss of $132,824.
The Alphabet options were exercised, but are also worth less than when originally purchased. Alphabet shares traded between $141.79 and $144.46 on Dec. 17 when the options were purchased versus a price of $101.86 to $104.03 the day they were exercised. The filing had no comment on the Alphabet transaction.
The sale of the 50 Nvidia options came after the Pelosis sold a highly criticized transaction in the chipmaker stock that came around the time of the passage of the CHIPS Act by Congress.
The Pelosis sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia on July 26 and added that the transaction saw a loss of $341,365. The sale happened after public scrutiny over the original exercising of calls as Pelosi publicly supported the CHIPS Act and also met with semiconductor leaders on a trip to Taiwan.
Pelosi has publicly stated that her husband does not receive information from her based on the information she knows as a public official. At the same time, several of her transactions have coincided with major events that affected stocks.
Trading based on non-public information is illegal, and it is one of the reasons there have been calls from the public and members of Congress to ban trading of stocks and options by members of Congress and their spouses. Only the Pelosis know the reasoning for the timing of the trade.
Benzinga's Take: The new filing showing trading losses of nearly $900,000 by the Pelosis likely won’t generate much sympathy from the public after the Congresswoman and her husband have profited nicely from stock-related transactions over the last few years.
It's worth noting that the comments section was notably blank on filings for years when the stock transactions were going up in value.
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