Graph and headline: Robert Reich, 3/25/2026
At 6:49 a.m. ET, traders placed 734 bets on crude oil contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange. One minute later, at 6:50 a.m., that number had jumped to 2,168 — equivalent to about $170 million.
At the same time — 15 minutes before Trump’s announcement — West Texas Intermediate futures also saw a huge spike in trading activity.
The same pattern was seen in contracts for Brent crude, the other major oil benchmark. Between 6:48 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. ET, the volume of trades rose from 20 to more than 1,650.
That’s about $150 million in contracts. A similar spike in trades occurred between 6:49 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. ET in futures contracts for the Standard & Poor 500 stock index, the Euro Stoxx 50, and other stock markets.
At 6:50 AM ET, $1.5 billion in notional value of S&P 500 futures contracts were bought.
In other words, 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. [emphasis added]
Related posts:
March 2026
Pay to play the fraudster way. (Julio Herrera Velutini edition). (3/24)
TrumpRx, his latest scam. (3/20)
Pay to play the TikTok way. (3/15)
Pay to play the pardon way. (3/8)
February 2026
Pay to play the AI way. (2/25)
Pay to play the META way. (2/20)
January 2026
Pay to play the inner circle way. (1/25)
Pay to play the TikTok way. (1/25)
2025
Sounds like a kings ransom to me. (10/21)
Sean Combs to Donald Trump: “The check is in the mail.” (6/1)
2024
Grift Ain't Groceries. (11/9)
2023
Day 3,017. (9/17)
No comments:
Post a Comment