Nancy Pelosi vs Cathie Wood: Whose Trades Timed It Better?

Nancy Pelosi and Cathie Wood rank among the market’s most-watched stock pickers. They time their bets in opposite ways, and a decade of data shows one clearly ahead.

This month made the contrast concrete. ARK bought Circle stock one day before the company won a landmark bank charter.

Pelosi vs Cathie Wood by the numbers

Quiver Quantitative runs a hypothetical “Nancy Pelosi” strategy that rebuilds a portfolio from her family’s disclosed filings. As of mid-July 2026, it had compounded near 21% a year since May 2014.

That figure is a backtest, not a live account, and it recalculates daily. At the same date, the model showed a win rate close to 73% across 731 trades. Its maximum drawdown was near 37%.

ARK’s flagship fund, the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), returned about 13.4% annualized since its October 2014 launch. Its total gain since then tops 300%.

On Quiver’s math, the Pelosi backtest more than doubles that figure. It also outpaces the S&P 500 over the same span.

How Paul Pelosi’s Trades Keep Winning

Nancy Pelosi does not place the trades herself. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, a longtime investor, runs the account.

His method is consistent. It centers on call options in large technology companies.

The results have been hard to ignore. In 2024, Pelosi’s portfolio rose about 70.9%, by Unusual Whales’ estimate, against a 24.9% gain for the S&P 500.

Holy shit.The White House just quoted Unusual Whales.The White House says that "Nancy Pelosi is rightfully criticized… she has a networth of $431 million. Nancy's Pelosi stock portfolio in 2024 grew 70%."This is from Unusual Whales 2024 report. pic.twitter.com/loQJGKQzbo

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 31, 2025

The report singled her out as a standout options trader. Even so, only about half of Congress’s active traders beat the market that year.

The edge is not new, either. A 2011 study found a portfolio copying House members’ buys beat the market by about 6% annually. That analysis covered 1985 to 2001.

The evidence is not one-sided, though. A 2022 paper found no proof that members beat the market once the STOCK Act forced disclosure.

There is a catch for anyone hoping to copy it. The STOCK Act lets lawmakers disclose trades as late as 45 days after the fact.

By the time filings appear, the entry price is often gone. Other well-timed congressional stock buys have kept the same debate alive.

ARK’s Transparent Bets and the Circle Call

Cathie Wood built ARK in 2014 and made her name with an early, outsized bet on Tesla. The firm publishes every trade the day it happens and stakes its name on public conviction.

Circle (CRCL) is the latest test. The stock is barely a year old. It closed 168% above its $31 IPO price on its June 2025 debut, then slid.

On July 9, ARK bought about 217,900 Circle shares, worth close to $13.7 million, per its daily disclosures. That day it also sold about $9.8 million of Robinhood stock. One day later, Circle secured final OCC approval to form a national trust bank.

The stock climbed roughly 15% in pre-market trading on the news. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire framed the charter as a turning point.

“OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system,” Allaire said in the announcement.

Transparency cuts both ways, though. ARKK rode the 2020 growth boom, then lost about 67% in 2022 as rates rose. Circle’s post-IPO swings show how quickly the mood can flip.

The Verdict

The two are not a clean match. One is a concentrated, options-heavy strategy rebuilt from delayed filings. The other is a diversified fund priced in real time.

Both lean on the same technology and crypto themes. That shared tilt powered much of the edge during a long bull market.

On the raw numbers, the Pelosi strategy still wins. Its options leverage, though, is hard for a small investor to copy.

The real divide is access. ARK’s moves are public within hours, while Pelosi’s surface weeks later.

That gap may soon matter less. Pelosi will retire when her term ends in January 2027, which would end one of the market’s most-watched disclosure trails.

Her trades also face a political clock. Senator Josh Hawley’s bill, first branded the PELOSI Act, cleared a Senate committee in 2025. There it was renamed the Honest Act and widened to cover presidents. It would bar lawmakers and their spouses from holding individual stocks.

My bill to BAN members of Congress from day trading on the taxpayers' dime just passed out of committee – clearing the 1st hurdle to becoming lawBring it to the Senate floor for a vote NOW pic.twitter.com/GE9cdDG9bb

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 30, 2025

The pressure is bipartisan. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has urged Congress to curb congressional stock trading.

For now, the scoreboard favors Pelosi on returns and Wood on transparency. The next year may decide whether the comparison even survives.