A Look at Pelosi's Financial Maneuverings In 2018

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is rich.

Very, very rich.

Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul, have a net worth that may be in excess of $200 million, based on her annual financial disclosure report.

Unlike President Obama, whose financial dealings mainly consisted of buying government-issued bonds, Nancy Pelosi prefers to be a bit more active and imaginative with her purchases.

Pelosi and her husband certainly dabble in the stock market, and they have a particular love for Visa, which is their biggest single stock holding. As of her last financial disclosure report, Pelosi and her husband owned a stake in Visa that was valued between $5,000,000 and $25,000,000.

Over the course of 2018, Pelosi and her husband opened up several new positions in both stocks and options. Let's take a look at how they did.

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July 27/2018

Pelosi bought 20 Amazon.com call options with a strike price of $1700 and an expiration date of January 17, 2020. This position cost Pelosi between $500,001 and $1,000,000.

These options are currently trading for about $75.00 or so.

These options cost above $350 (per contract) or so when the position was opened, so this was a horrible trade for Pelosi.

In real money terms, this is a loss about over $500,000.


October 12/2018

Pelosi bought 30 Amazon.com call options with a strike price of $1,600 and an expiration date of January 17, 2020.

These options are currently trading for around $157.50 or so.

At the time of purchase, these options were trading for roughly $440.

In real money terms, this is an even bigger loss of approximately $840,000.


February 2nd, 2018

Pelosi bought two different Apple call options:

50 call options with a strike price of $140 and an expiration date of September 21st, 2018

50 call options with a strike price of $130 and an expiration date of September 21st, 2018

These call options were both exercised on September 20th, 2018, giving the Pelosi family 10,000 shares of Apple.

The options data has long expired, so we'll have to guess as to how they did.

At the time that these options were purchased, Apple was trading at $155 per share. These options were both in the money, so I would guess that the $140 calls cost them $25 or so, while the $130 would have cost them $33.

When the options were exercised, the $140 calls would have been worth $80, while the $130 calls would have been worth $90 or so, as Apple had recovered to $220/share.

This would have been a huge score for Pelosi and her husband, netting them well over $1.5 million in profit. Apple currently trades at $270.77 per share, so if they still have their shares in Apple, they have continued to do well with them.


September 11th, 2018

The Pelosi love affair with Apple continued on this date, as they purchased 100 Apple call options with a strike price of $140 and an expiration date of June 19th, 2020.

These call options currently trade for around $131 or so. At the time of purchase, they would have cost the Pelosi family roughly $84 per contract. Another big score courtesy of Apple, with a profit in the neighborhood of $500,000.


October 24th, 2018

On this date, Pelosi and her husband bought 10,000 shares of AT&T Inc.

The stock closed at $30.36 that day, so that is the price that we'll use for our calculations.

AT&T Inc. is currently trading at $38.17. After dividends, the Pelosi family would be up about $100,000 or so in profit on this position.


March 27th, 2018

On this date, Pelosi and her husband bought 10,000 shares of Dropbox (DBX).

The stock closed at $29.90 on that day, which means that they bought roughly $300,000 in shares.

As of the close on December 11th, 2019, the stock was trading at $17.24, which means that Nancy Pelosi is down roughly $130,000 on her position.


July 27th, 2018

On this date, Pelosi purchased 20 call options of Facebook with a strike price of $150 and an expiration date of January 17th, 2020.

These options are currently trading for roughly $52.25 or so.

At the time, Facebook was trading at approximately $175 per share, which means that they probably paid around $45 per call contract or so (this historical data is currently not available to me for Facebook). So, this has likely resulted in a small profit for the pair of around $15,000 or so.


October 9th, 2018

On this date, Pelosi purchased 30 call options on Facebook with a strike price of $140 and an expiration date of January 17th, 2020.

These options are currently trading for $62.50 or so.

At the time, Facebook was trading for $158 per share or so, meaning that the Pelosi family likely paid around $38-$39 for them. All in all, the Pelosi family probably made around $70,000 on this trade.

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All in all, definitely a profitable year for Nancy Pelosi and her husband on the stock market, especially when you take into account their existing holdings.

Source: Open Secrets - Nancy Pelosi Financial Disclosure Form (*.pdf)

Filed under: General Knowledge