Free Republic

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband has placed up to $1 million worth of bullish bets on Tesla stock, the politician revealed in a financial disclosure form last week. Paul Pelosi, who runs an investment firm, bought 25 call options on Tesla stock with a strike price of $500 and an expiration date of March 18, 2022. He spent between $500,001 and $1 million on them on December 22. The call options give him the right to buy 2,500 Tesla shares at $500 each at any point before they expire in March 2022. That may sound like a fantastic deal with...

Over the course of the past few months, one large buyer has accumulated approximately 50,000 gold call option contracts -- most of the calls are strikes between $1,600 and $1,800 an ounce and for expirations between August and December. In total, as much as $50 million in call premium has been paid out by the purchaser. As the gold futures market is roughly 10x to 15x the size of the gold options market, this is a huge bet in absolute dollars relative to the liquidity of the market. Considering that the calls are well out-of-the-money (gold, on a futures basis,...