Just over half an hour before President Donald Trump announced “productive conversations” between the U.S. and Iran, stock traders made significant moves in oil trading, according to the Financial Times (FT).
In a brief two-minute span on Monday morning, traders bought over 6,000 Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures contracts, valued at around $580 million. This flurry of activity happened between 6:49 and 6:50 a.m. ET. Trump’s social media announcement came at 7:23 a.m., following a period of tensions that began on February 28th.
Brent and WTI are major benchmarks for global oil prices. The FT noted a notable spike in trading value for both benchmarks at the same time. It remains unclear if a single person or multiple individuals were responsible for these trades.
Economist Chris Martenson remarked on social media that if no one is held accountable, it signifies a troubling phase of decline.
He expressed, “If no one goes to jail after this, we have entered the ‘everyone for himself’ phase of imperial decline.”
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump shared, “Over the past two days, the U.S. and Iran have engaged in constructive dialogue toward resolving hostilities in the Middle East.” He added that he had instructed the Army to pause any military actions against Iranian energy targets for five days, contingent on the outcomes of ongoing discussions.
White House Press Secretary Khush Desai stated, “The White House does not support the idea of officials using insider information for personal gain, and suggesting otherwise is baseless and irresponsible.”
One portfolio manager described the massive volume of futures traded that morning as “really unusual,” signaling that “someone got richer.” This kind of trading isn’t entirely new, as there have been previous reports of traders capitalizing on moves linked to international events.
In a related situation, a trader reportedly earned $1 million from several bets on Polymarket, a prediction market, anticipating military actions involving the U.S. or Israel against Iran. This trader had a remarkable 93% success rate with those bets.
Nick Vaiman, CEO of blockchain analytics firm Bubble Map, indicated that the substantial profits and the nature of the trades suggest possible insider knowledge.
In another example, a Polymarket user made $400,000 betting that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would lose power, which occurred shortly after the bet was placed.
