Treason in the Futures Markets

LadyCailin

None of this is any surprise to people who had two brain cells to rub together. He showed massive corruption in his first term, and despite being impeached twice, got away with it scot free. Then got a huge mandate from the people to be a shitty person, so yeah, he’s corrupt. The majority of voting Americans don’t really seem to care.

rich_sasha

While I agree it is very suspicious, needs investigating and far, far greater oversight in general, I'm not sure there is enough to conclude this definitely is insider trading. Markets are weird. People trade for weird reasons, sometimes gently and in small size, sometimes aggressively and all at once. We're zooming in at a short window just before the tweet. If you look at random windows you'll find these too. 6.49 am is around lunchtime in Europe, and people exist there too. Crude oil liquidity isnt at its peak at that time but certainly not "thin". It's really not that uncommon for traders to accidentally send a "fat finger" trade, much bigger in size than intended or appropriate for the market conditions. I'm not trying to split hairs here. There's been plenty of weird coincidences and each should be investigated, and on the balance of probability at least one may well be insider trading at the highest echelons. And in any case, in any financial job you need pre clearance for trades, often justifying why you're doing them if they are odd enough. There are minimum holding periods, day trading is not allowed, and the full record auditable by regulators. It is insane to me that politicians are not subject to such rules and it must change. But to conclude that a weird trading pattern is definitely insider trading is IMO cheap. It's like TV drama where the unemployed, wife-beater-wearing husband definitely killed the wife, end of story. The real tragedy IMO is that this is really avoidable. It would take very basic, very standard regulation to stamp this out, and we wouldn't be debating this in a technology forum.

cbeach

I wander if the scale of this alleged insider trading will come close to the systematic insider trading that occurred under the Biden term and gave rise to the PELOSI Act?

jfengel

"Treason" seems a bit much. We put a very high bar on that term because it comes with the most serious consequences. The fact that nobody seems particularly surprised by it suggests that the damage is long since done.

the_gipsy

Excuse my ignorance, but why can't this be traced? It's not crypto wallets, why is there no transparency here?

epolanski

And very soon, as economics and behavioral sciences suggest, we will have world events directly influenced by people having the incentives to make them happen for financial gains only. There's a reason we have banned and prosecuted any hint of insider trading or match fixing for centuries. Yet we play dumb on way more serious risks, allowing betting on whether a country will attack another and labeling it "information hedging and price discovery". I can't but look at the modern world with worry. We live in increasingly Orwellian and dystopic times. The world has never been so rich and evolved, yet, as a society, we're increasingly unhappy, alone and void of purposes that aren't greed and selfishness related. We're looking at the decadence of a civilization and all we can do, at best, is post about it over the internet, and that's when we're in the aware crowd not falling for bitter insulting and fighting because somebody else holds different ideas. I would really want to know what can we do, as average Joes, when the most powerful people in the world fall in line and are terrorized to speak their mind. And that's when they're not actively contributing to the very same decadence.

anonu

"Treason" is a bit hyperbolic. Futures are governed a bit differently around MNPI versus equities - based on CFTC rules. If the MNPI was obtained through a duty breach then it still "might" be illegal. Most futures MNPI enforcements have been around energy data or FOMC announcements. But its usually noticed due to consistent, repeated patterns. A one-off event like this, while egregious, is probably not going to be chased. Not saying thats right... I am just saying the grift will continue...

protocolture

>Krugman He should have traded on his bet against the internet.

patall

So, who is paying the bill here? I am assuming the insider trading itself is zero-sum (its obviously different if what's happing happens only to allow insider trading) and while some (like passive investors like me that buy every month) win a bit, others lose a bit, someone loses big on the futures market. Is that the high frequency and quant traders? Because I assume, someone must be really mad? Especially since, and I again 'assume', that there must be easier and less public ways to bribe the admin