'Queen of Stonks' Nancy Pelosi's portfolio of stocks plunged 20% last year – meaning she even underperformed funds that track the struggling S&P 500

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'Queen of Stonks' Nancy Pelosi's portfolio of stocks plunged 20% last year – meaning she even underperformed funds that track the struggling S&P 500
Stocks held by Nancy Pelosi slumped 19.8% in 2022, according to a report by Unusual Whales.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
  • Nancy Pelosi's portfolio slumped 20% last year, according to an Unusual Whales report published last week.
  • That means the former 'Queen of Stonks' lagged the S&P 500 in 2022.
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Nancy Pelosi's run as the "Queen of Stonks" appears to have come to an end last year.

The former speaker of the House's portfolio fell 19.8% in 2022, according to a report into Congressional trading published by Unusual Whales last week.

That means Pelosi's holdings lagged the SPDR's S&P 500 ETF Trust, which tracks the benchmark stock market index. That fund lost over 18.2% last year as high inflation, soaring interest rates and the war in Ukraine all fueled a 19.4% selloff in the S&P 500 itself.

Pelosi's trades regularly feature on high-profile investing meme Twitter accounts like Dr. Parik Patel and Litquidity.

The accounts joke that the 82-year-old and her husband Paul are risk-taking star traders who occasionally benefit from insider information due to her connections in Congress.

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But after beating the market between 2019 and 2021, Pelosi's tech-heavy portfolio underperformed last year.

Tech stocks struggled in 2022 as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates from near-zero to around 4.5%, with the higher cost of borrowing chipping away at the future cash flows that form a core part of their valuation.

Unusual Whales' report shows that Pelosi disclosed owning shares in Tesla and Roblox in March. The two stocks fell 25.3% and 56.8% between then and the end of the year.

Longer-term holdings Google parent Alphabet, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Netflix and Salesforce also racked up double-digit losses in 2022.

Other US politicians enjoyed better years for stock trading than Pelosi, according to Unusual Whales' report.

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Equities held by far-right Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's logged gains of 6.2% in 2022, while former Senate leader Mitch McConnell's portfolio comfortably outperformed the slumping S&P 500 despite slipping 6.9%.

Two members of the House — Texas Rep. Pat Fallon and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — made returns of over 50% trading stocks last year, per Unusual Whales.

Members of Congress are required by law to report trades made by them or their immediate family within 45 days.

Despite those transparency requirements, a 2021 Insider investigation found that dozens of federal lawmakers and at least 182 top congressional staffers had violated a federal conflict-of-interest law known as the STOCK Act.

Pelosi supported a stock-trading ban for Congress last year – after telling Insider reporter Bryan Metzgler that US politicians should be able to participate in the "free-market economy" in December 2021.

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Read more: The Queen of Stonks: How Nancy Pelosi became the biggest meme in investing

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