Suspicions of insider trading to manipulate markets loom over Trump’s presidency

Throughout US President Donald Trump’s second term, stockbrokers have been betting millions of dollars on stocks just before he makes major announcements.

The BBC has examined trading volume data in financial markets and compared it to some of the president’s pronouncements that have affected the stock market.

A consistent pattern of sharp spikes was found just a few hours – sometimes just minutes – before a social media message or media interview became public.

Some analysts say this has all the hallmarks of illegal insider trading, which some use to bet on the market based on information that is not actually available to the public.

There are those who claim that the situation is more complex and that some operators have become more skilled at anticipating the president’s interventions.

Here are five of the most significant examples.

March 9, 2026: “The war is practically over”

Some of the biggest stock moves have been in oil trading and futures markets.

Nine days after the start of the US-Israel war against Iran, Trump declared in an interview with CBS News that the war was “practically over.”

• 18:29 GMT: oil bets skyrocket.
• 19:16 GMT: Trump announces that the war is almost over.
• 19:17 GMT: oil plummets 25%.

The first moment in which the public would have found out about the interview was at 3:16 p.m. Washington time (7:16 p.m. GMT), when the reporter alluded to it in a message on X.

Oil market traders reacted to this news that the war would end much sooner than expected by selling crude oil stocks, causing prices to plummet by 25%.

However, market data indicates a huge increase in bets predicting a drop in oil at 18:29 GMT; a total of 47 minutes before the reporter’s message.

The speculators who made those bets will have made millions of dollars from the movement in crude oil prices.

March 23, 2026: “A complete and complete resolution of hostilities”

On March 23, just two days after threatening to “annihilate” Iran’s power plants, Trump posted on his Truth Social social network that Washington had held “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS” with Tehran about a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION” of the hostilities.

It came as a great surprise to diplomatic observers and speculators.

• 10:forty eight-10:50 GMT: oil bets skyrocket.
• 11:04 GMT: Trump publishes a message on networks about the “entire resolution” of the hostilities.
• 11:05 GMT: oil falls 11%.

Immediately, stocks rose and the benchmark price of US crude oil – which had been rising – fell sharply.

As the BBC reported at the time, 14 minutes before the president’s social media message, there were an unusually high number of bets on the price of US oil.

The same pattern was seen with traders buying Brent crude contracts, the other major oil price benchmark.

The stock market movement seemed “abnormal, no doubt,” an oil analyst told the BBC at the time.

April 9, 2025: pause on “Liberation Day”

Moving away from the war in the Middle East, there are other examples of stock market activity that have attracted attention.

On April 2 of last year, Trump announced what he called “Liberation Day,” a broad imposition of tariffs on imports from virtually every country in the world.

Stock markets around the world plummeted.

But a week later, when Trump announced a 90-day “pause” on tariffs imposed on all countries except China, stock markets soared.

The benchmark S&P 500 index (which tracks the market capitalization of the 500 largest companies in the US) jumped 9.5%, one of the biggest one-day gains since World War II.

• 17:00 GMT: Speculators begin to place large bets on the rise of the stock market.
• 17:18 GMT: Trump announces a pause on tariffs.
• 17:19 GMT: A historic rise in stock markets begins.

Again, an unusual stock trading pattern preceded these events, with an unusually high number of bets ahead of the announcement in a fund that replicated the S&P 500.

The number of contracts exchanged jumped to more than 10,000 per minute just after 17:00 GMT. Earlier in the day, the number had been in the hundreds.

Some speculators bet more than $2 million that the stock market would rise that day, even though it had suffered seven straight days of losses. The enormous boom would have generated profits of almost US$20 million.

Later that week, several senior Democratic senators wrote to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urging the financial regulatory agency to investigate whether the president’s statements “enriched insiders and friends of the government at the expense of the American public.”

When the BBC asked the agency if it had investigated these allegations, an SEC spokesperson declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the White House did not respond to BBC requests for comment on any of the unusual stock activity discussed in this report.

January 3, 2026: Maduro’s capture

• December 2025: The Burdensome-Mix account is created.
• January 2, 2026: The account bets US$32,000 on Maduro’s fall.
• January 3, 2026: Maduro is captured and Burdensome-Mix wins US$436,000.

The recent growth of online forecasting markets has also attracted scrutiny from observers.

Platforms powered by blockchain (blockchain) like Polymarket and Kalshi offer users the opportunity to speculate on anything from the weather to baseball to US foreign policy.

President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, is an investor in Polymarket and serves on its advisory board. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Kalshi and the BBC contacted him for comment.

In December 2025, a user created an account on Polymarket called Burdensome-Mix. On December 30, he placed the first bet that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be removed from office at the end of January 2026.

Between December 30 and January 2, Burdensome-Mix bet a total of US$32,500 on that event.

When Maduro was captured by US special forces the next day, Burdensome-Mix made $436,000.

Shortly after, the account changed its username and has not placed any more bets since.

February 28, 2026: the attacks against Iran

• February 2026: creation of six accounts in Polymarket.
• February 28: The accounts earn between them US$1.2 million.

According to the analysis of blockchain from the Bubblemaps website, six accounts were created on Polimarket in February.

They all placed bets that a US attack on Iran would occur before February 28. When the attacks were confirmed by President Trump early that day, the accounts made a combined profit of $1.2 million.

Five of those six users have not placed any more bets since then, but recent activity on one of those accounts shows that it has won another $163,000 by correctly predicting and betting on a US-Iran ceasefire on April 7, which was announced by Washington and Tehran that same day.

Polymarket told the BBC that it “applies, maintains and enforces the highest standards of integrity in the market”, adding that it works “proactively” with regulators and authorities in this regard.

In March this year, both Polymarket and Kalshi outlined new rules to crack down on insider trading.

Forecast markets are under the jurisdiction of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The CFTC did not respond to a BBC request for comment, but its president recently told a congressional committee that his organization had a “zero tolerance” policy toward fraud and insider trading.

It has also emerged that the White House sent an internal email to the non-public last month, warning them not to use inside information to place bets on the betting markets.

Spokesman Davis Ingle told the BBC at the time that “any suggestion that Administration officials engage in such activity without evidence is unfounded and irresponsible.”

difficult to check

Insider trading has been illegal for almost all Americans since the passage of the Securities Act of 1933.

It was later expanded to include US government officials in 2012, although to date no one has been prosecuted under that law.

Paul Oudin, a professed r who specializes in financial regulation laws at the Higher School of Economic and Commercial Sciences, ESSEC, points out that the rules are difficult to enforce.

“Financial authorities will not pursue a case if they cannot discover who the source of information is,” says Oudin.

None of the US financial authorities contacted by the BBC have acknowledged any of the allegations of alleged insider trading.

“Massive operations can occur with a financial instrument that clearly demonstrate that someone had knowledge of what Donald Trump was about to announce,” says Ouden.

“But there is a good chance that no one will be prosecuted,” he adds.

Graphics are by Tommy Lumby.

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