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The Fantastically Profitable Mystery of the Trump Chaos Trades

Metanoia Prime

Metanoia Prime

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,163
California
The president's talk can move markets—and it's made some futures traders billions. Did they know what he was going to say before he said it?

In the last 10 minutes of trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday, September 13, someone got very lucky. That's when he or she, or a group of people, sold short 120,000 "S&P e-minis"—electronically traded futures contracts linked to the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index—when the index was trading around 3010. The time was 3:50 p.m. in New York; it was nearing midnight in Tehran. A few hours later, drones attacked a large swath of Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, choking off production in the country and sending oil prices soaring. By the time the CME next opened, for pretrading on Sunday night, the S&P index had fallen 30 points, giving that very fortunate trader, or traders, a quick $180 million profit.
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There is no way for another trader, let alone an outsider such as me, to know who is making these trades. But regulators know or can find out. One longtime CME trader who has been watching with disgust says he's never seen anything quite like these trades, not at least since al-Qaida cashed in before initiating the September 11 attacks. "There is definite hanky-panky going on, to the world's financial markets' detriment," he says. "This is abysmal."
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Indeed, this single Trump lie briefly inflated domestic markets by hundreds of billions of dollars. "What this describes is, quite literally, market manipulation that constitutes criminal violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934," commented George Conway, the conservative attorney and Trump critic.

Whether Conway is right or wrong is a matter of legal opinion, but given how fishy and coincidental the trading in e-minis seems to be these days, the SEC or CFTC would be doing a great service (and their job) for the American people by investigating who is behind these lucrative trades, and what they knew before they placed them. At the moment, what we're getting from them is an indifferent shrug.
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Much more at the link https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades
 
Wraith

Wraith

Member
Jun 28, 2018
8,892
Bumping this thread because it really looks like the administration is tipping someone off so they can get rich by insider trading off of Trump's trade war.
On August 23, a Friday, markets were looking glum in the wake of poor trade war news. But the following week, Trump lied saying that trade war talks were going well after a phone call with China. The Chinese said no call happened. Nevertheless, the S&P bounced 80 points and a person who had bought 386,000 e-minis the week before made $1.5 billion, Vanity Fair found.
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The magazine noted that on September 10, a trader or group of traders bought 82,000 e-minis in the last 10 minutes of trading in New York. In Beijing, it was almost 4 am on September 11 when this happened. A few hours later, the Chinese government announced it would lift tariffs on a range of American products. Markets surged, and the buyer who bought the e-minis made $190 million, Vanity Fair found.
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Stooge

Stooge

Member
Oct 29, 2017
11,338
CME is an ok regulator. They'll be on it.

Now the CBOE is the place to do illicit trades that won't be policed.
 
Window

Window

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,291
This has been speculated since the beginning of Trump's trade war and I'm surprised nothing's come of it so far.
 

Michaelandavinci

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
764
That sounds like insider trading to me, I mean moving a large chunk of futures contract within hours of a military strike means the traders were very confident that the trade will go their way.
 
SlickShoesRUCRazy

SlickShoesRUCRazy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,036
User Banned (2 Weeks): Advocating violence, Long history of similar infractions.
Guillotines and/or gallows need to happen. There is no way around. A slap on wrist to the corruption that has overrun our government is not going to suffice.
 

Mr.Awesome

Banned
Nov 4, 2017
3,077
These massive futures trades arent incredibly uncommon like the article makes them out to be, and you'll always be able to tie it to a news story after the fact.

I'd also pin it on the Chinese way way way more likely behind something like this if there is something going on, because theyve done it before and they're a lot harder to pin.
 
Byakuya769

Byakuya769

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
2,718
This isn't a very compelling observation. Was the trading volume abnormal? Can you backtest against similar announcements historically and find similar positions taken? Did anyone take a long/short position at the wrong time in the same timeframe and get hosed?
 
ItRhymesWithDoom

ItRhymesWithDoom

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,722
Another day, another massive case of corruption. "We do it all the time!" Okay, that's great, can we then also bring back the guillotine? We do THAT all the time too!

But hot takes aside, the scarier aspect would be the 'terror organisation checkout' implied in the OP.

Either that, or someone wants us all to know they have tapped Trump's phone, and he should know that.
 
Wraith

Wraith

Member
Jun 28, 2018
8,892
WASHINGTON – Today, former prosecutors Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congresswoman Kathleen Rice (D-NY) sent letters to the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission calling for an investigation following a Vanity Fair report of the suspicious timing around sales of e-mini futures contracts immediately prior to major geopolitical events or statements from Donald Trump. The trades may be coincidental, but their timing and scale raise serious suspicions about whether the traders received material nonpublic information that would affect the S&P and how they received such information.
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Hasseigaku

Hasseigaku

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,594
I hate how cynical the last few years have made me but I mean of course this is happening.

Why the fuck would you not do this shit when there's been no punishment for anything else?
 
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