4/15/26
America has always been a land of grifters. Inside dealers, pay-to-play schemers, elected officials in both parties whose investment portfolios had an uncanny habit of outperforming the market. What’s new about that? Let’s start with the brazenness. The almost performative shamelessness of it. As though the old norms didn’t just erode but were suddenly bulldozed away, like the remnants of a wing of the White House: visible for all to see, if not publicly debate. Welcome to the golden era of corruption. Bring cash. Or, better yet, well-timed futures contracts.
At 6:49 a.m. ET on Monday, March 23, someone—we’ll probably never know who—placed roughly $500 million in oil and equities futures trades, betting that oil prices were about to fall and the broader market would rally, per market data reviewed by Newsweek. Even though there was no public information to suggest an imminent major geopolitical development that would significantly move those markets in tandem, it turned out to be a good bet. Fifteen minutes later, at 7:04 a.m., President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. had begun ceasefire talks with Iran and would be postponing planned strikes on the country’s energy grid. Oil prices immediately plunged. Markets rallied. Whomever placed those trades pocketed a fortune.
www.newsweek.com
