Nancy Pelosi’s husband could make big money off Alphabet stock’s big

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, a businessman and investor, could be up big after Google parent Alphabet‘s stock popped Wednesday.

Paul Pelosi in December purchased millions of dollars’ worth of call options tied to the equity performance of Alphabet, chipmaker Micron and media giant Walt Disney Co., days after the speaker said she opposed banning members of Congress from owning individual stocks. There is also a growing push by several senators and representatives to limit stock ownership by lawmakers and their spouses.

Members of Congress and their spouses are not barred from buying or selling stocks, bonds and other securities. But they and their spouses must file disclosures of such trades within 45 days under the federal STOCK Act. Paul Pelosi’s options purchases were disclosed well within the legal timeframe in late December.

While Alphabet, Micron and Disney took a beating in January amid a broader sell-off in tech names, a glowing earnings report from Alphabet on Tuesday sent its shares up more than 7% in Wednesday’s trading session. That spike puts Alphabet’s Class C shares up about 2.3% over the past month, well ahead of the S&P 500’s loss of 3.7%.

On Dec. 17, according to disclosure documents, Paul Pelosi bought 10 Alphabet call options with a strike price of $2,000 with an expiration date set for mid-September 2022. That in-the-money purchase is basically a bet that Alphabet’s stock price will remain well above the strike price by mid-September.

Whether he ultimately collects a profit depends on how much he paid in premiums to buy the options contracts. He previously reaped a windfall from Alphabet options last summer.

Speaker Pelosi triggered a backlash on Dec. 15, when she said she opposed a renewed effort to crack down on securities trading by members of Congress and their spouses.

“No,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters at a news conference in December when asked whether she would support such a prohibition. “We’re a free market economy,” she said. “They should be able to participate in that.”

Later, the speaker said that she would allow such ownership limits to advance in the House if members of her caucus supported them.

A representative for Speaker Pelosi’s office did not respond to a question from CNBC on whether Paul Pelosi still owns those call options in Alphabet.

A growing group of bipartisan lawmakers says trading activity by lawmakers before and during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests that some public officials are profiting on information before it’s made public.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street’s top regulator, is investigating whether stock sales made by GOP Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina just before the lockdowns began in 2020 amounted to insider trading. The…