Traders in the United States reportedly earned up to 5 billion Swedish kronor (approximately $580 million) in oil futures trades just 15 minutes before former President Donald Trump announced on Monday that productive talks were underway with Iran. According to a report from Dagens Nyheter, experts suspect this was illegal insider trading, with Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman calling it "treason."
The trading activity occurred 27 seconds before 6:50 AM on Monday morning, when oil futures worth $580 million were sold on the New York Stock Exchange. At that time, the U.S. appeared to be preparing for an escalation in the Middle East conflict. Fifteen minutes later, Trump posted on Truth Social about "productive talks" between the U.S. and Iran, which markets interpreted as signaling a quick end to the Middle East war and the imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices plummeted, allowing the traders who had made the futures trades to reap substantial profits.
But we also have another word for when people with access to secret information about national security – such as plans to bomb or not bomb another country – exploit this for profit. That word is 'treason.'
Trading volume during those few minutes was nearly ten times greater than an average day, according to data from Bloomberg News cited in the report. This is reportedly not the first time people close to Trump have been suspected of making large profits by having information about what he plans to say before others in the market. Similar suspicious trading has been observed on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, where users can bet on whether specific events will occur.
Paul Krugman wrote on Substack that this constitutes illegal insider trading, adding: "But we also have another word for when people with access to secret information about national security – such as plans to bomb or not bomb another country – exploit this for profit. That word is 'treason.'"