People In Or Connected To White House Are Engaged In Corrupt Insider Trading

The following is part of a post by Robert Reich:

 15 minutes before Trump announced that the U.S. would postpone strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure, the volume of stock market trades mysteriously spiked and the price of oil just as mysteriously plunged. 

Yet at that time — 15 minutes before Trump’s announcement — there were no public indications that any serious talks had been taking place between the U.S. and Iran. 

So this huge spike in stock market trades and drop in oil futures must have been made by someone, or some people, who had prior knowledge of Trump’s announcement.

This person or these people made a boatload of money off this inside information. 

But who was the inside trader, or traders, who placed such huge bets on Trump doing exactly what he did?

 

Could it be, say, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who is one of the people representing the United States in negotiations with Iran, and is also operating a private-equity firm with over $6 billion in investments, heavily funded by Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, especially Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund? 

Or Steve Witkoff, who’s also representing the U.S. in these negotiations and who also has his own investment firm?

Or Howard Lutnick?

Or Melania?

 

Or all of them? 

Who knows?

The Securities and Exchange Commission is in charge of policing against such insider trading. On the basis of the trading I mention above, ordinarily the SEC by now would have opened an investigation. 

But so far, nothing. 

This isn’t the first time spikes in betting have occurred just before Trump did something unexpected.

In January, wagers surged on Polymarket, a crypto-powered predictions platform, as bets were made on Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro being out of power by the end of the month. Hours later, he was seized by American forces. (One account made more than $436,000 from a $32,537 bet.)

Why should we worry about people with insider information profiting in the stock market, futures markets, or even crypto-powered predictions markets? 

For one thing, it’s unfair. It hurts average investors while increasing the wealth of certain people who know, for example, what Trump is about to do (including Trump and members of his family). 

For another, such rigging erodes public confidence in market fairness, which ultimately destroys markets. Put simply, if the public believes the market is rigged in favor of privileged individuals, they may withdraw their investments. 

This is why the Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to police the market against insider trading.

And why we should all be concerned that the top enforcement officer at the SEC abruptly resigned last week because the SEC’s chairman and other Republican appointees wouldn’t allow her to be more aggressive in pursuing charges of fraud and other misconduct against Trump’s inner circle. 

And why what occurred Monday morning, 15 minutes before Trump’s public announcement, is so damned troubling. 

Friends, there’s a word for this. It’s called corruption.