It looks like there was more signs of insider trading on today's Iran war news

[Forex News]

About 20 minutes before Iran's foreign minister told the world today that the Strait of Hormuz was fully open again, someone dumped 7,990 lots of Brent crude futures between 1224 and 1225 GMT. That's roughly $760 million worth of short exposure, placed with impeccable timing right ahead of an announcement that cratered crude by as much as 11% on the day.

Pretty good trade. Suspiciously good. And not the first time during this conflict.

On April 7, another ~$950 million short hit the tape just hours before the US and Iran announced their two-week ceasefire. Go back to March 23 and you'll find traders selling 15 minutes before Trump posted that he'd delay strikes on Iran's energy infrastructure — a post that sent crude down 15%. Three home runs in a row, what luck.

The March 23 volume spike:

The CFTC is now investigating, according to a person familiar with the matter but there's no chance a White House insider goes down for this one. We have been raising the alarm for months that someone is trading on non-public information around many policy decisions, and the derivatives market is exactly where you'd expect that to show up and they don't seem to be worried about getting caught.

Even the Iranian foreign minister called out US insider trading on war news and he was the one who announced today's decision. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looked to buy defense stocks before the war.

The market implication is simple. Every geopolitical oil headline now has to be priced with the assumption that someone saw it first. I sure home I'm wrong and that the CFTC has real teeth this time, because "minutes before the announcement" keeps showing up in the timestamps. I'm tired of being front-run by insiders on everything and it makes everyone wonder if there are nefarious reasons for every tweet, leak and announcement as it seems to be open season on insider trading.

This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.

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