Surge in global betting on energy markets seen on Monday morning 15 minutes prior to Donald Trump’s Truth Social post announcing ‘productive’ talks with Iran
A surge in betting on global oil markets just 15 minutes before Donald Trump announced a temporary halt to his airstrikes on Iran this week has sparked claims of insider trading.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform at 7.05 a.m. Monday: “I am please [sic] to report that the United States of America, and the country of Iran, have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.”
Iran denied any such talks had taken place, branding them “fake news”.
But according to Bloomberg, at least 6 million barrels of Brent and West Texas Intermediate were suddenly sold between 6.49 a.m. and 6.51 a.m, raising suspicions that word of the president’s announcement was leaked in advance.
The returns for insiders of front-running Trump posts/speeches are way smaller than they would be if he didn’t lie and flip-flop all the time: the market simply doesn’t react anywhere as much to whatever Trump states than it would if he was honest and consistent, so the spikes up or down (and thus the gains from front-running his statements) are much lower.