Financial markets experts are raising concerns about possible insider trading after an unusual spike in oil futures trading minutes before President Trump announced talks with Iran on Truth Social.
Trump posted shortly after 7 a.m. EST on Monday that talks with Iran were occurring, a message that sent oil prices down and helped spur a more than 1,000-point surge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The post—an abrupt reversal from a Saturday message that threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless it reopened the Strait of Hormuz—caught investors by surprise and drew scrutiny over trading activity just before the market-moving announcement.
Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported a cluster of trades between 6:49 a.m. and 6:50 a.m., when about 6,200 Brent and West Texas Intermediate futures contracts changed hands with a notional value of roughly $580 million, according to the FT’s analysis of Bloomberg data. By comparison, the average trading level for the same minute over the previous five trading days was about 700 contracts. Market experts said the volume was larger than typical for that time of day.
“The massive spike in volume of trades right before that post is certainly enough to raise eyebrows, and I think to launch an investigation into what was behind that,” said Stephen Piepgrass, a partner focused on futures trading at Troutman Pepper Locke.
Insider trading—when people or firms trade on material, nonpublic information—is illegal because it undermines market integrity, said Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst and a former options trader. “Does it seem fair that someone is trading and making money and profiting on information that you and I don’t have? Yeah, that kind of stinks,” she said. Schlesinger added she doesn’t expect regulators to necessarily pursue an investigation, noting Trump’s past support for lighter regulation.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees futures markets, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House also did not immediately respond.
The spike drew particular suspicion because no public, market-moving announcements were scheduled for that morning—no government reports or Fed speeches that might have prompted sudden large trades. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that the trading “would be baffling, except that there’s an obvious explanation: Somebody close to Trump knew what he was about to do, and exploited that inside information to make huge, instant profits.”
It is not clear whether the trades were initiated by a person acting on privileged knowledge or by automated trading algorithms, which execute preset strategies. Tim Skirrow, head of energy and derivatives at Energy Aspects, said his data show trading at 6:50 a.m. was six times the typical volume for that minute. “In terms of size, this is not exceptionally large—just unusual for this time of day,” he said.
Other recent examples of unusual or highly profitable bets have raised questions about possible use of confidential information. On prediction markets:
– A user named “Magamyman” reportedly made nearly $600,000 betting on the timing of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to Polymarket data.
– Another prediction-market user has earned about $967,000, including many trades tied to Iran, and has a reported success rate above 93% for bets over $10,000, CNN reported.
– In January, a Polymarket trader won more than $436,000 wagering that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be captured by U.S. forces shortly before Trump removed Maduro from power.
The oil market itself has been unusually volatile since the outbreak of hostilities in the Iran conflict. Brent crude traded around $100 a barrel, about 37% higher than before the conflict began Feb. 28. Futures trading volume has also been elevated: several days in March saw more than 3 million contracts traded, versus more typical daily volumes of roughly 700,000 to 1.4 million in the three weeks before Feb. 28. Darrell Fletcher, managing director of commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets, said Monday’s volume was “a bit more normal than the usual time of the day, but there’s a lot going on in the market.”
Concerns about manipulation extend to prediction markets, where users bet on political or governmental outcomes. The Guardian reported that eight Polymarket users placed about $70,000 in bets on a U.S.-Iran ceasefire that some experts say suggest insider knowledge. In response to such concerns, the CFTC has launched a proposed rulemaking process that would address how prediction markets should prevent insider trading, a development Piepgrass said could reshape oversight of both prediction platforms and related commodity markets.
Lawmakers have also moved to restrict certain bets. A bipartisan group of House and Senate members introduced bicameral legislation to bar prediction markets from enabling bets on government actions, war, or events that an individual could influence—aiming particularly to prevent officials from profiting on insider knowledge.
Prediction-market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket say they are tightening rules and guardrails to detect suspicious activity as they seek to head off stricter government oversight. Both firms said they have systems in place to flag unusual trades.
As scrutiny grows, regulators, lawmakers, and market participants are watching whether investigations or rule changes follow the spike in trading before Trump’s post—and whether those steps will curb possible misuse of privileged information across futures and prediction markets.
—CBS News’ Jake Rosenwasser contributed to this report
Edited by Alain Sherter
In: Iran; Trump Administration; Polymarket; Kalshi; Oil and Gas
