10 Best Stock Traders In Congress In 2023 (Spoiler: Nancy Pelosi Has Reentered The Chat)

The topic of whether members of Congress should have the right to buy and sell stocks and options while in office is increasingly gaining attention from the public, media, investors, and congressional representatives themselves.

A new report shows that several members of Congress beat the overall market by a significant margin in 2023.

What Happened: The overall stock market had a rebound in 2023 with major stock indexes like the S&P 500 ending the year positive and trading near record highs.

Despite the strong returns of stock indexes, several members of Congress had stock trades in 2023 that led to outperforming the S&P 500.

A new report from Unusual Whales shows that 115 members of Congress disclosed transactions in 2023, which was down from past years. Of the trading members, around one third beat the S&P 500 in performance last year.

The average gains were 31.18% for Democrats and 17.99% for Republicans, versus a gain of 24.8% for the S&P 500, which is tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY.

The report indicated a decrease in both the average number of transactions and the time taken to disclose trades by members of Congress in 2023, compared to the previous three years. This trend emerges as calls to ban congressional trading have intensified. Notably, the value of these transactions increased in 2023, surpassing $1 billion based on the maximum size of the disclosed trades.

The report emphasizes several conflicts of interest, drawing attention to the specific committees that members of Congress serve on and how these positions may intersect with their stock trading activities.

Unusual Whales also highlights a higher number of options traded in 2023, a number that surpassed the levels reported in both 2022 and 2021.

Top 10 Stock Traders in Congress: Similar to the 2022 and 2021 years, Unusual Whales has compiled who the best stock traders were among members of Congress based on trades exercised during the year.

Here's a look at the top 10 for 2023:

1. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), Representative: +238.9%
2. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), Representative: +122.2%
3. Garret Graves (R-La.), Representative: +107.6%
4. David Rouzer (R-N.C.): Representative: +105.6%
5. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Representative: +80.0%
6. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Senator: +78.5%
7. John Rutherford (R-Fla.), Representative: +69.1%
8. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Senator: +68.1%
9. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Representative: +65.5%
10. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Representative: +63.3%

Green stands out as the sole member of Congress who ranked in the top 10 for stock trading performance in both 2022 and 2023. After securing the 10th position in the previous year’s top 10 list, Green climbed to the second rank in 2023.

Pelosi and Rouzer ranked among the top 10 in 2021, ranking sixth and seventh respectively in that year's report.

Related Link: Tommy Tuberville Lost On Tesla Trade, Could Win Big On US Steel Trade: A Look At The Congress Trades Raising Eyebrows

Best Trades of 2023: Along with naming the top members of Congress by overall performance in 2023, the report also highlights the top realized gains on trades in 2023.

1. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.): Meta Platforms Inc META, +109.1%
2. Josh Gottheimer: Meta Platforms, +106.9%
3. Josh Gottheimer: Monster Beverage Corporation MNST, +105.6%
4. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.): NVIDIA Corporation NVDA, +98.5%
5. Michael McCaul (R-Texas): Fabrinet FN, +83.4%
6. Michael McCaul: Fabrinet (second trade), +83.4%
7. John Curtis (R-Utah): Advanced Micro Devices AMD, +78.2%
8. Ro Khanna: Tesla Inc TSLA, +63.4%
9. Josh Gottheimer: Nvidia, +55.5%
10. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska): Amazon.com Inc AMZN, +51.8%

Despite taking up four of the top 10 places on the list for individual trades, Gottheimer was not one of the 10 best overall traders. Gottheimer also appeared more times on the best individual trades, with two more Nvidia trades profiting over 40% each.

Gottheimer also was listed with the best individual trade in 2022's report.

The Representative recently disclosed having $5 million to $25 million worth of in-the-money call options of Microsoft Corporation MSFT. Gottheimer was previously employed by Microsoft, with the trades potentially being related to grants he received while employed with the company.

Key Highlights: Pelosi is among the most scrutinized members of Congress regarding trading activities. The former Speaker of the House has faced questions about the timing of various trades executed by her husband, venture capitalist Paul Pelosi.

Benzinga recently shared that the Pelosis bought $1 million to $5 million in Nvidia options. The purchase came after it was disclosed that the couple sold their Nvidia stock for a loss in 2022 after the timing related to the CHIPS Act and Pelosi's trip to Taiwan were called into question. The early sale by the Pelosis ended up coming with poor timing and missing out on millions of dollars in profit if the couple had continued to hold the stock that soared over 200% in 2023.

The report also highlights Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) who is one of the most active traders in Congress. Tuberville sits on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and actively trades futures of wheat, corn, soy and cattle.

Tuberville's purchase of Humacyte HUMA, a penny stock that may have profited from the Ukraine war with Russia, is also flagged in the report.

Unusual Whales helped launch two Congress Trading themed ETFs in 2023 through a collaboration with Subversive. The Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETF NANC and Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF KRUZ provide investors with opportunities to invest in the same stocks as members of Congress.

Read Next: Congressman Buys 1 Share Of Nvidia: Smaller Size Than Pelosis But First Stock Buy In Months

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