Did Nancy Pelosi sell Nvidia stock before the crash?

While many American politicians have a reputation for making suspiciously lucrative trades, few are perceived to be as engaged in insider trading as Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House.

It is, perhaps, precisely for that reason that a post claiming that the Representative sold her entire stake in Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) – a stake worth millions of dollars – just ahead of the September 3 stock market crash went viral.

X post claims Pelosi was forewarned of DoJ’s Nvidia subpoena
Indeed, Jason A. Williams, an investor active on X made a post on Tuesday claiming that Pelosi sold her NVDA shares ahead of their crash driven first by a weak manufacturing report, and then a Department of Justice (DoJ) subpoena.

In fact, Nvidia’s recent drop was one of its biggest and quickest ever as it erased more than $300 billion from its market cap within days. NVDA stock price today, at press time, stands at $105.78, and the stock is 14.39% in the red in the 5-day chart.

Though the post spread like wildfire across the social media platform, the information within it is apparently incorrect as no such trade was filed with U.S. authorities, nor was it detected by Finbold’s Congressional Trading tracker.

Finally, Williams’ post appears to be a copy of another tweet, made by one Mike Alfred earlier on the same day. For his part, Alfred retracted the post once he was made aware of the error.

Why Nancy Pelosi could have sold Nvidia stock after all
Despite all information available at press time on September 4 indicating Nancy Pelosi still holds her Nvidia stock, some apparent deficiencies in the reporting system may cause the situation to change in the coming weeks.

Much like it is difficult to gauge just how large the Representative’s NVDA position is – most of the share purchases were described as worth somewhere between $1 million and $1, and $5 million – politicians have a 45-day grace period before they must report their trades.

Why the public is so keen to believe in Congressional insider trades
As anticlimactic as it may sound, the public is keen – to a large degree – to believe politicians are engaging in insider trading because, simply put, they make too many exceptional trades.

This is well illustrated by Representative Brian Higgins’s portfolio return rate of 238.9% in 2023 and the fact that the strategy tracking Dan Meuser’s stock market activity is up 74.57% in the last 12 months.

A more specific stock illustrating the point – and the concerns of many within and without political circles – is Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), a weapons company whose shares were ‘relentlessly’ purchased ahead of the public release of its latest $3 billion contract with the U.S. Armed Forces.