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.
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.
