Google engineer arrested for using internal search data to win $1.2 million on Polymarket

[Endymio]

Not defending the Pelosis (or insider trading) but buying Nvidia stock around the time of the CHIPS Act vote doesn't seem suspicious at all.

LOL, what? Paul Pelosi takes up a large stake in NVidia options just a few days before wife Nancy brings the CHIPS Act to the House Floor, announces her unwavering support for it, and declares it will undoubtedly pass. Note: Paul didn't buy NVidia stock-- he purchased options, which would lose him money unless NVidia suddenly surged upwards -- which it did.

 

[GFitzpatrick47]

LOL, what? Paul Pelosi takes up a large stake in NVidia options just a few days before wife Nancy brings the CHIPS Act to the House Floor, announces her unwavering support for it, and declares it will undoubtedly pass. Note: Paul didn't buy NVidia stock-- he purchased options, which would lose him money unless NVidia suddenly surged upwards -- which it did.

Again, anybody watching the news or reading Politico or Huffpost would've known that the CHIPS Act was gonna be brought to the floor. It was one of the largest pieces of legislation being written and debated during the Biden administration.

You're acting like only someone in Congress would've known that the legislation was being written. That's just wrong, and a bit silly. You don't write major legislation in secret and dump in on the House floor without any warning, let alone any publicity.

To continue, the CHIPS Act is a merger between two separate pieces of legislation. Anyone who understands legislation would recognize that you only merge two or more pieces of legislation (especially complicated, high-dollar legislation like this) if a few conditions are met, the most important ones being either bipartisan support (namely in the Senate), or if you have such a strong majority that you can create a mega-bill (which Biden and the Dems obviously didn't have in 2021 or 2022).

The notion that Nancy announcing her unwavering support for it was the catalyst to juice the stock is just wrong. Aside from the fact that the prior pieces of legislation had already passed with bipartisan support (meaning that the House version had already been publicized, debated, and voted on), simply bringing legislation to the floor is no guarantee that any individual stock is gonna pop. To add, the Senate had already passed the reconciled CHIPS Act BEFORE the House voted on it, so Paul (and anybody paying attention, because these votes are enjoined by law to be made public, and a bill like this would've been publicized by the architects and opponents alike) would've known when it was gonna be voted on by the House. Nancy didn't need to tell him. And even if she did, so what? Senate and House leaders publicly announce when they plan to bring legislation to the floor for a vote all the time. It's not illegal. It's not even unethical, considering that the debate and the voting has to be done in public AND be publicly announced by law.

Lastly, Paul Pelosi literally runs a venture capital firm and has been running it for 5 decades at this point (a quick search shows it was founded in 1973), so the idea that he, or his colleagues, wouldn't be knwoledgable about the happenings of the tech industry while living in San Francisco is laughable. So yeah, it's really surprising that the guy who has run a venture capital firm for 5 decades and lives in San Francisco would know about options, and would buy options in the leadup to a piece of tech-related legislation that's the combination of two prior pieces of legislation, during a period of time where the current administration was touting semiconductor-related government investment as one of its major legislative priorities.

Oh yeah, I just looked at Nvidia's stock price for the period of time you're talking about. It was $16.51 on July 26, 2022, the day before the Senate brought it to the floor for a vote. The price the day it passed the House (which was essentially a formality)? $17.96. The day it was signed into law (Aug 9th, 2022)? $17.06. So yeah, we're talking about absolutely MASSIVE swings here.

The reality is that you got your information entirely wrong. Those options Paul bought? That was back in June...2021. In fact, Paul and Nancy SOLD their Nvidia shares prior to the July 27, 2022 vote, and Paul exercised the options in June 2022, again, well before the vote (and at a time where Nvidia stock was actually LOWER than what it would be during the 7/27/2022 - 8/9/2022 period).

I can link you the Forbes, Reuters, and Fox Business articles with the dates and timelines. Hardly liberal bastions of bullshit reporting, particularly around the Pelosis.

 

[Endymio]

Again, anybody watching the news or reading Politico or Huffpost would've known that the CHIPS Act was gonna be brought to the floor

Not when Pelosi bought the stock. That act was revised from two previous bills -- neither of which passed. Many people thought some sort of bill would eventually be brought to Congress and passed ... but for stock options, timing is everything. Had the bill been brought the following Congressional term, Pelosi would have lost a bundle, rather than making millions. Knowing the exact time the legislation was introduced is what enabled his huge returns.

Nor is this the first time. The Pelosi's did this on dozens of occasions. Here's another one, just before the CHIPs Act:

"On March 19th, 2021 Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul bought 10 Million Dollars worth of Microsoft stock and three weeks later it was publicly announced that Microsoft had received a #22 Billion Dollar government contract. Microsoft stock when up 11% the day of the announcement...."
There's also the infamous Visa transaction, where Paul bought shares just two DAYS before Nancy announced she'd where Nancy publicly announced her position on a bill benefitting them. The stock soared 50% overnight. Or a decade later, when Paul SOLD their stake in Visa, just before the DOJ announced they were filing an antitrust lawsuit against the company, saving them a million-dollar loss.

The notion that Nancy announcing her unwavering support for it was the catalyst to juice the stock is just wrong.

The bill finally arriving in Congress is what juiced the stock, and her support certainly helped convince investors that it would finally pass -- the stock nearly doubled in price in just a few months.

Aside from the fact that the prior pieces of legislation had already passed with bipartisan support

LOL, what? The Endless Frontier Act of 2019 died in committee both the House and the Senate the year before. The CHIPs for America Act died in committee also. It wasn't until they were combined into the USICA Act that they passed both chambers of Congress -- and that was AFTER the Pelosi's bought their options.

To add, the Senate had already passed the reconciled CHIPS Act BEFORE the House voted on it

But **after** Pelosi bought the stock.

Lastly, Paul Pelosi literally runs a venture capital firm and has been running it for 5 decades

And after operating that venture firm without insider information -- from 1969 to 1987 -- that firm had made less than $200K. Then suddenly it began a huge string of success and Paul and Nancy are now worth over $250,000,000.00

Just luck, eh?

 

[GFitzpatrick47]

Not when Pelosi bought the stock. That act was revised from two previous bills -- neither of which passed. Many people thought some sort of bill would eventually be brought to Congress and passed ... but for stock options, timing is everything. Had the bill been brought the following Congressional term, Pelosi would have lost a bundle, rather than making millions. Knowing the exact time the legislation was introduced is what enabled his huge returns.

Nor is this the first time. The Pelosi's did this on dozens of occasions. Here's another one, just before the CHIPs Act:

"On March 19th, 2021 Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul bought 10 Million Dollars worth of Microsoft stock and three weeks later it was publicly announced that Microsoft had received a #22 Billion Dollar government contract. Microsoft stock when up 11% the day of the announcement...."
There's also the infamous Visa transaction, where Paul bought shares just two DAYS before Nancy announced she'd where Nancy publicly announced her position on a bill benefitting them. The stock soared 50% overnight. Or a decade later, when Paul SOLD their stake in Visa, just before the DOJ announced they were filing an antitrust lawsuit against the company, saving them a million-dollar loss.


The bill finally arriving in Congress is what juiced the stock, and her support certainly helped convince investors that it would finally pass -- the stock nearly doubled in price in just a few months.


LOL, what? The Endless Frontier Act of 2019 died in committee both the House and the Senate the year before. The CHIPs for America Act died in committee also. It wasn't until they were combined into the USICA Act that they passed both chambers of Congress -- and that was AFTER the Pelosi's bought their options.


But **after** Pelosi bought the stock.


And after operating that venture firm without insider information -- from 1969 to 1987 -- that firm had made less than $200K. Then suddenly it began a huge string of success and Paul and Nancy are now worth over $250,000,000.00

Just luck, eh?

1. As I said in my first post on the subject, I don't doubt that the Pelosis have engaged in insider trading, but that focusing on Nvidia specifically was misguided. You bringing up Microsoft is irrelevant to what I said.

2. What do you mean the bill "finally arriving in Congress" is what juiced the stock? Legislation is entirely the purview of Congress, so it doesn't "arrive" there, it's there from the start. Nevertheless, the EFA was already in committee in May of 2020. The two revised bills came through in April 2021 (the USICA in the Senate, and the EFA in the House). The options were purchased in June 2021, after a small run-up of roughly $1 per share. Even if you consider that the America Competes Act wasn't introduced until July 19, 2021, you're still looking at a gain of only an additional $2-3 per share, but for a piece of legislation that had merely been "introduced", and thus still had to go through the entire process of revisions in both the Senate and the House, then going to conference committee with both chambers, which is why the final version (the CHIPS Act) didn't get passed until the following year. It also ignores the fact that so many things can and often do get changed in conference (often resulting in the complete failure of the bill), that the notion that Nancy and Paul could sufficiently prognosticate that the final version wouldn't just pass, but would be specifically beneficial to Nvidia, is a bit laughable.

Also, Nvidia stock didn't need to be juiced. It was already up 125% between the time the EFA was first introduced by the Senate in 2019 and when the options were purchased in 2021

2. A bill dying in committee (particularly the Senate) isn't indicative of a bad bill, or a lack of support. Further, there's no such thing as the EFA of 2019. While it was "introduced" in 2019, it didn't go through the committee process of both the House and Senate (which is necessary for any legislation to pass, so merely one chamber introducing a bill is almost irrelevant in terms of denoting the year) until May of 2020. Guess what was happening in May of 2020 that might cause legislative priorities to shift significantly? I'll wait.

3. While making a profit isn't necessary nor sufficient to prove insider trading, you've yet to explain what inside information Paul could've possibly had via Nancy during a nearly 3 year period in which some form of the CHIPS Act was being crafted, negotiated, and debated. You simply cannot prove that Paul didn't merely read Huffpost, Politico, or engage with any other politics-related media for a nearly 3 year period, and the ONLY time he heard about this legislation is when his wife told him about it, which even if she did, isn't inside trading because the information was already made public BY LAW, in the Congressional record. You also can't prove that it wasn't merely the fact that since 2020 (hell, even 2019), Nvidia had been on a major upswing that didn't abate until December 2021. Between 1/1/2020 and 1/1/2021, it pretty much doubled, and by 12/1/2021, it had doubled again. What's to say that Paul didn't just read the tea leaves and divine that Nvidia was doing great, stock wise, that their consumer chip sales were through the roof, and that the data center and server-based sales were beginning to skyrocket as well?

Further, since the Senate introduced the legislation prior to the House, and before going to committee, what information could Nancy have provided that would've been either substantively different than what the Senate had already announced, let alone to the point eliciting an options purchase a year in advance of when the fully-written CHIPS Act would be passed, especially when you consider that negotiations would've been ongoing from the period of the options purchase in June 2021 until final passage of the CHIPS Act in July 2022. It's even more silly on your part, because the options were exercised and the position substantively sold BEFORE the actual passage and signing of the bill, when the options had likely been out of the money because Nvidia shares were essentially flat between June 2021 and July 2022 (and were actually down roughly 50% in 2022 alone from January until July).

4. You say it had made less than $200k, okay. I found that their net worth when she entered Congress was $3m, in 1987. Hmm, I wonder what major economic, technological, and financial developments occur in the San Francisco Bay area the following decade or two that could explain how a venture capitalist could rake in a bunch of dough even though his wife is on the salary of a Congressperson.

5. Lastly, and I can't repeat this enough, I absolutely think that they've engaged in insider trading (if not, at best, skirting ethical rules but not necessarily doing anything outright illegal). However, I don't think Nvidia is an example of that. Buying Nvidia call options in 2021 wasn't a risky bet that would necessitate insider information, nor was Nvidia some small cap, unknown firm that an 80+ year old Paul Pelosi would have no idea about, especially given that it was founded and is headquartered in the Bay Area. It had already more than doubled within the last year, and there were no headwinds that would convince somebody that it would plateau at $16/share, let alone retreat, let alone EVEN MORE when you had two very distinct Presidential administrations that were discussing massive investment in the semiconductor and broader tech space.

6. This has been fun. Cheers.

 

[Endymio]

...focusing on Nvidia specifically was misguided. You bringing up Microsoft is irrelevant to what I said.

It shows a pattern of the Pelosis repeatedly trading on inside knowledge Nancy obtained from her position.

, the EFA was already in committee in May of 2020.

And it DIED in committee in 2020. Had the Pelosis purchased options then, Paul would have lost every penny.

The options were purchased in June 2021.... the final version (the CHIPS Act) didn't get passed until the following year.

Oops! But Pelosi **exercised** those option on June 17, 2022 -- one year later, and right before the bill hit.

It also ignores the fact that so many things can and often do get changed in conference (often resulting in the complete failure of the bill), that the notion that Nancy and Paul could sufficiently prognosticate that the final version wouldn't just pass, but would be specifically beneficial to Nvidia, is a bit laughable.

What's laughable is denial of the facts. The CHIPs Act was widely anticipated to boost semi stocks, NVidia and Intel in particular, and any trader would give their eyeteeth to know definitively that this bill -- bandied about since 2019 -- was finally going to make it out of committee for a vote.

Also, Nvidia stock didn't need to be juiced. It was already up 125%

It's irrelevant what the stock did before this trade. What matters is that this was inside (non-private) information that any reasonable investor would believe would affect the stock price. That's the sum entirely of the legal definition of illegal inside trading. It doesn't matter how the stock actually moved; what matters is the timing of the purchase itself.

2. A bill dying in committee (particularly the Senate) isn't indicative of a bad bill, or a lack of support.

No one said it was. Knowing that a bill might eventually make it out of committee and win enough support for passage isn't helpful to an options trade. What matters is knowing the exact timing.

you've yet to explain what inside information Paul could've possibly had via Nancy during a nearly 3 year period in which some form of the CHIPS Act was being crafted, negotiated, and debated. You simply cannot prove that Paul didn't merely read Huffpost, Politico, or engage with any other politics-related media for a nearly 3 year period

Oops! Not one of these publications knew exactly when the bill would be voted on, if ever. If you persist in promulgating this theory, provide us a link to an actual news story.

.... the information was already made public BY LAW, in the Congressional record.

Please provide a link to the Congressional record prior to Paul's purchase that states the CHIPs Act would be voted on and pass.

Between 1/1/2020 and 1/1/2021, it pretty much doubled, and by 12/1/2021, it had doubled again. What's to say that Paul didn't just read the tea leaves and divine that Nvidia was doing great

Glad you asked! Because this is simply one of 100+ stock trades that the Pelosis made just before news became public that Nancy would have herself known, but not the general public.

. You say it had made less than $200k, okay. I found that their net worth when she entered Congress was $3m, in 1987.

Nope. Their total net worth was about 1/5 of that:

Nancy Pelosi's 'True Legacy': Turning $785K Into $130M Through Smart Stock Picks Over 37 Years In Congress

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently announced that she will retire at the end of her term in Congress in 2027, concluding a political career spanning nearly four decades. Over the course of her tenure, the San Francisco representative often drew attention and criticism for the active...

finance.yahoo.com

Now they're worth $285 million.

 

[GFitzpatrick47]

It shows a pattern of the Pelosis repeatedly trading on inside knowledge Nancy obtained from her position.


And it DIED in committee in 2020. Had the Pelosis purchased options then, Paul would have lost every penny.


Oops! But Pelosi **exercised** those option on June 17, 2022 -- one year later, and right before the bill hit.


What's laughable is denial of the facts. The CHIPs Act was widely anticipated to boost semi stocks, NVidia and Intel in particular, and any trader would give their eyeteeth to know definitively that this bill -- bandied about since 2019 -- was finally going to make it out of committee for a vote.


It's irrelevant what the stock did before this trade. What matters is that this was inside (non-private) information that any reasonable investor would believe would affect the stock price. That's the sum entirely of the legal definition of illegal inside trading. It doesn't matter how the stock actually moved; what matters is the timing of the purchase itself.


No one said it was. Knowing that a bill might eventually make it out of committee and win enough support for passage isn't helpful to an options trade. What matters is knowing the exact timing.


Oops! Not one of these publications knew exactly when the bill would be voted on, if ever. If you persist in promulgating this theory, provide us a link to an actual news story.


Please provide a link to the Congressional record prior to Paul's purchase that states the CHIPs Act would be voted on and pass.


Glad you asked! Because this is simply one of 100+ stock trades that the Pelosis made just before news became public that Nancy would have herself known, but not the general public.


Nope. Their total net worth was about 1/5 of that:

Nancy Pelosi's 'True Legacy': Turning $785K Into $130M Through Smart Stock Picks Over 37 Years In Congress

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently announced that she will retire at the end of her term in Congress in 2027, concluding a political career spanning nearly four decades. Over the course of her tenure, the San Francisco representative often drew attention and criticism for the active...

finance.yahoo.com

Now they're worth $285 million.

1. I don't doubt that they have, however, you've shown no evidence of inside knowledge relevant to Nvidia, at all.
2. No, you're just wrong. Nvidia's stock price in 2020 floated between a low of $4.80 and a high of a little over $13 in 2020. If Paul had bought call options at pretty much any point in that year, they would've been in the money at almost point in 2021 or 2022. That's just how call options work.
3. Yeah, and you know that call options have an expiration date, right? You know that you have the right, but not the responsibility to exercise them within a certain timeframe right? Without knowing the maturity date, we don't know whether the options were soon to expire, whether he had purchased LEAPs, or anything else. Further, you've ignored the reality that if he had exercised them a few months earlier, they would've actually made money. So why didn't they? Why hold on to them to the point where the position they eventually sold resulted in a loss?
4. You just proved my point from my first post. If the widely talked about CHIPS act (as well as its preceeding acts) was KNOWN even to the public to likely boost Nvidia and other tech stocks, why would Paul need Nancy to tell him anything? What information could she have provided that would've been more impactful if the Act was already known/expected to boost Nvidia. You're contradicting yourself. Either the CHIPS Act was so widely known and expected to boost Nvidia that Paul wouldn't need Nancy, or nobody knew the CHIPS Act was even in the pipeline, and Paul needed Nancy to tell him everything about it because otherwise, he would've never bought the call options. Which one is it? Further, we already knew it was going to make it out of committee for a vote, because the merged bill (USICA) passed 68-32 in the Senate in 2021. The House later wrote their version, and it passed in February of 2022, the Senate then amended the House version, it went into conference committee, and the bipartisan version (what we know as the CHIPS Act) came forth. And as far as we know, no additional purchases of Nvidia stock, or call options, or selling of positions happened between the time the options were purchased (June 2021) and when they were finally sold (July 2022). So if you're argument is correct, and getting info about upcoming votes would undoubtedly juice the stock, why no additional trades?
5. Again, what inside information would Nancy have been able to provide? To go further, the law states that insider trading is dependent on material, non-public information ABOUT THE COMPANY itself. Nothing in the CHIPS Act (or the preceeding acts) was specific or unique to Nvidia (in fact, Nvidia and AMD ended up getting NOTHING, grant or loan wise, from the Act) and no one is intimating that Nancy had specific information about Nvidia itself. Even if you consider the provision of the STOCK Act, it still wouldn't matter because the trades were made by Paul, not Nancy, and as it is currently written, family members aren't restricted by the provisions of the Act.
6. It is relevant what the stock does, as a counterfactual. A hot stock is likely to have many people expecting it to go higher, increasing purchasing and call option activity. Thus, you need even more evidence that insider information was given, because otherwise, a person can simply say "The stock had moved 125% in the last year, and I expected it to go higher because it's been doing gangbusters for a long time."
7. Here's a link to CNBC clearly stating that the Senate would be holding their final vote within a narrow window from the time the article was published (7/20/2022) https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/20/chips-act-vote-senate-advances-semiconductor-bill.html
Another. https://www.timesunion.com/business...-billion-CHIPS-Act-will-be-voted-17327288.php
Another https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/24/chips-act-senate-vote/
Another https://rollcall.com/2022/07/26/chips-plus-bill-advances-toward-final-passage-in-senate/
Another https://www.fiercesensors.com/sensors/chips-act-passes-us-senate-64-34-procedural-vote
Another https://fortune.com/2022/07/25/chips-act-semiconductor-senate-bill-gop-intel/
Another https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-chips-act-windfall-government-subsidies
8. You're purposefully mistating and misunderstanding my point. The discussion and debates surrounding the Act were part of the record, just as the earlier votes on the Senate and House version were part of the record. You don't need to be clairvoyant to recognize that a bill that passed with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and with a healthy gap in the House, was going to move to conference committee and become a final bill that. would almost assuredly pass. Those votes would've been in the Congressional record and announced publicly. Full stop. No one needs a guarantee that the final bill would pass.
9. The general public would've known that the CHIPS Act and the preceeding legislation were being discussed, debated, written, and everything involved in passing legislation. I truly cannot believe you're arguing this point concerning Nvidia and the CHIPS Act. To act like a centerpiece legislation of the entire Biden Administration was kept under wraps for nearly 2 years, then voted on in the dark of night is ludicrous without anybody from the general public being able to get information about it is ludicrous.
10. That article only states that the value of the couple's STOCK PORTFOLIO was between $610k - $785k. I'm sure you're smart enough to recognize that a stock portfolio (should it exist) is only one component of calculating net worth. Also, if you read the link posted in the article to Nancy's disclosure in 1987, you'd see the attached form that shows that in terms of assets, they had over 21 business interests and assets (aside from stocks), 4 of which had values of over $250k, 4 pieces of real estate, 3 of which valued at over $250k, and at least 1 savings account valued at between $100-$250k. Now, I'm not going to do the rest of the math, but it's clear you didn't read or understand the article YOU linked, because it did not state their NET WORTH was only $785k. Read the disclosure form if you'd like, it's actually in the article.

As I said, this has been fun. Now, be like your avatar and go rummage through some trash, and hopefully you'd manage to find some evidence or a factual point. Cheers.

 

[Endymio]

you've shown no evidence of inside knowledge relevant to Nvidia, at all.

Nice wall of words, but I've proven a long-standing pattern of Paul purchasing stocks just days before news broke about government actions that Nancy would have been privy to. Try again.

Nvidia's stock price in 2020 floated between a low of $4.80 and a high of a little over $13 in 2020. If Paul had bought call options at pretty much any point in that year, they would've been in the money at almost point in 2021 or 2022.

Now you've proven my point for me. During that period, and the even longer period that some form of the CHIPs Act was under discussion, NVidia was widely acknowledged to be a rising stock to purchase ... by people who had nothing but public knowledge. Yet Paul DID NOT BUY then. He waited until days before the CHIPs Act finally received a full vote -- a vote that resulted in passage. Case closed.

3. Yeah, and you know that call options have an expiration date, right? You know that you have the right, but not the responsibility to exercise them within a certain timeframe right? Without knowing the maturity date, we don't know whether the options were soon to expire, whether he had purchased LEAPs, or anything else.

Paul did not purchase LEAPs. Nice try, though.

Further, you've ignored the reality that if he had exercised them a few months earlier, they would've actually made money. So why didn't they?

Glad you asked! Because "a few months earlier", Paul had not been given inside information and had no idea what NVidia stock would do in the future. Your argument is inane beyond belief -- you're literally saying "well in Jan 2022, Paul should have simply done what I did today, and looked up what NVidia stock would be in July 2022...several months in the future".

Come again?