Nancy Pelosi beat the market by 581%: Here are her 5 biggest wins and what you can learn from each one

Conservative commentator Scott Jennings recently joked on X that “President Trump should hire Nancy Pelosi in retirement to manage Americans’ stock market portfolios. She beat the S&P 500 by 559%. We could all be retired in 6 months!” (1) The sarcasm aside, the numbers Pelosi leaves behind heading into retirement tell a startling truth.

Over the past decade, Pelosi’s portfolio has generated an estimated 838% cumulative return, beating the S&P 500’s 256% return by 581% at time of writing. In 2024 alone, her portfolio jumped 70.9% compared to the S&P 500’s 24.9% gain. Pelosi’s personal net worth has skyrocketed to over $278 million according to Quiver Quant data (2).

These aren’t actually Nancy Pelosi’s trades directly — her husband Paul Pelosi, a venture capitalist, handles investments for the Pelosi family. Due to the STOCK Act of 2012, members of Congress must publicly disclose their spouse’s trades. Despite the ethics debate, these five trades reveal timeless investing principles anyone can apply.

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On January 13, 2025, Pelosi purchased 50 Tempus AI call options at a $20 strike, valued between $50,001 and $100,000. The stock has surged more than 150% in 2025, a clear case of the “Pelosi effect” — stocks often jump when her trades are disclosed, especially small cap stocks like TEM.

The lesson: Tempus uses AI for cancer diagnostics. Healthcare is a recession-resistant industry generally and AI adoption is accelerating. Shortly after Pelosi’s purchase, Tempus signed a $200 million deal with AstraZeneca in April 2025. When big pharma writes nine-figure checks, they’ve done extensive due diligence. Keep in mind, though, that small-caps are volatile so it’s best to limit them to 5-10% of your portfolio. Track FDA approvals, medicare decisions, and pharmaceutical partnerships to look for signals into which companies are interesting in the space.

On March 19, 2021, Pelosi exercised options to buy 15,000 Microsoft shares at $130. This move came just 12 days before Microsoft announced a $22 billion Army contract. The timing raised eyebrows, but no wrongdoing was proven. Microsoft has more than doubled since.