$70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money(data-and-politics.ghost.io)
data-and-politics.ghost.io
$70M in 60 Seconds: How Insider Info Helped Someone 28x Their Money
https://data-and-politics.ghost.io/70-million-in-60-seconds-how-insider-information-helped-someone-28x-their-money/
454 comments
404 Media reported a story on Monday[1] about a news outlet that claimed there'd be a 90-day break on tariffs for all countries besides China. This was published a few days before the official announcement.
So someone, somewhere, knew something before everyone else.
[1] https://www.404media.co/benzinga-news-service-that-falsely-r...
So someone, somewhere, knew something before everyone else.
[1] https://www.404media.co/benzinga-news-service-that-falsely-r...
These sort of trades happy fairly regularly, before market breaking news in individual stock names.
Just search for SEC insider trading cases. When they happen in options they are often pretty obvious unless the market is moving with real momentum the same way, and even then, option sellers will report you if they think it is suspicious. (By obvious, I mean, regulators should start asking questions - of course there can be a multitude of reasons.)
The difference here is that absolutely NO ONE on any side of politics seems to think the SEC & DOJ will pursue these.
Just search for SEC insider trading cases. When they happen in options they are often pretty obvious unless the market is moving with real momentum the same way, and even then, option sellers will report you if they think it is suspicious. (By obvious, I mean, regulators should start asking questions - of course there can be a multitude of reasons.)
The difference here is that absolutely NO ONE on any side of politics seems to think the SEC & DOJ will pursue these.
> And it wasn’t just options. At exactly 1:01 pm EST, trading volume in SPY shares themselves spiked. Nearly 2.75 million shares were bought in that single minute.
This is standard practice, it was simply the marketmaker hedging its position after just having sold those $2.5 million call options.
The math checks out; at 85 cent per piece, those were 2.94 million call options. At 9 above the spot the delta was less than one so I guess you'd need to buy slightly above 2 million shares to hedge your delta. The normal SPY trades would have made up for the remainder of the 2.75 million volume.
This is standard practice, it was simply the marketmaker hedging its position after just having sold those $2.5 million call options.
The math checks out; at 85 cent per piece, those were 2.94 million call options. At 9 above the spot the delta was less than one so I guess you'd need to buy slightly above 2 million shares to hedge your delta. The normal SPY trades would have made up for the remainder of the 2.75 million volume.
kleptocracy
/klĕp-tŏk′rə-sē/ noun
A government characterized by rampant greed and corruption.
/klĕp-tŏk′rə-sē/ noun
A government characterized by rampant greed and corruption.
The follow-up post shows the whole magnitude of the insider trading:
> My previous post highlighted a striking example: how a single $2.5 million options position turned into $70 million in under an hour. But focusing solely on that trade risks missing the larger picture. What we actually saw was widespread activity. Numerous sophisticated traders carefully placing positions across several strike prices ($504, $505, $507, $509) in SPY as well as similar trades in QQQ.
> The pattern wasn't limited to a single trade or strike price. It was a coordinated wave of positions, all established within a critical half-hour window before the news broke.
> Imagine someone purchasing thousands of lottery tickets with a specific number combination just moments before those exact numbers are drawn.
https://data-and-politics.ghost.io/this-is-what-insider-trad...
> My previous post highlighted a striking example: how a single $2.5 million options position turned into $70 million in under an hour. But focusing solely on that trade risks missing the larger picture. What we actually saw was widespread activity. Numerous sophisticated traders carefully placing positions across several strike prices ($504, $505, $507, $509) in SPY as well as similar trades in QQQ.
> The pattern wasn't limited to a single trade or strike price. It was a coordinated wave of positions, all established within a critical half-hour window before the news broke.
> Imagine someone purchasing thousands of lottery tickets with a specific number combination just moments before those exact numbers are drawn.
https://data-and-politics.ghost.io/this-is-what-insider-trad...
I imagine this is going to happen again (except 100x) when there’s a China “deal.”
I expected an article about AWS configuration mistake.
What's missing as information here, is how often this kind of big bets happen. It's only showing some anecdotical data on 2 days from 2008 and 2009.
I believe he's right, but would just like some more proof that it's really extraordinarily rare to place such a big bets, especially on 0DTEs (which I believe did not exist in 2008).
I believe he's right, but would just like some more proof that it's really extraordinarily rare to place such a big bets, especially on 0DTEs (which I believe did not exist in 2008).
What's surprising about all this is how quickly, easily and cheaply the republic was dismantled and how little opposition there was from people in power.
This culminated in Trump v. United States [1] where unelected partisans simply invented presidential immunity completely out of thin air. That means there are absolutely no possible legal repercussions for any of this. None. And even if there were, the agencies in charge of enforcing it have either been gutted or they've been subverted by putting a sycophantic lackey in charge.
This is the new kleptocracy we live in. Nobody is coming to save us. The supposed political opposition (ie the Democratic Party) is nothing more than feckless controlled opposition who are more interested in defending US imperialism than they are in winning elections.
Things are only going to get worse.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States
This culminated in Trump v. United States [1] where unelected partisans simply invented presidential immunity completely out of thin air. That means there are absolutely no possible legal repercussions for any of this. None. And even if there were, the agencies in charge of enforcing it have either been gutted or they've been subverted by putting a sycophantic lackey in charge.
This is the new kleptocracy we live in. Nobody is coming to save us. The supposed political opposition (ie the Democratic Party) is nothing more than feckless controlled opposition who are more interested in defending US imperialism than they are in winning elections.
Things are only going to get worse.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States
The following article:
»This Is What Insider Trading Looks Like«
https://data-and-politics.ghost.io/this-is-what-insider-trad...
»This Is What Insider Trading Looks Like«
https://data-and-politics.ghost.io/this-is-what-insider-trad...
These are just the most shameless and/or retarded people. Insiders who bought quietly spread over the day before we'll never find out about
As a foreigner I cannot comment on this, else I will be rejected at the airport by the ICE.
That's called freedom my friends.
That's called freedom my friends.
I'd be more interested to see the other side of this trade and how many options were purchase that didn't pay out.
People buy options all the time, sometimes without any insider information, people buy options that happen to just perfectly line up with major market moving events.
Look at 9/11, there were several trades made right before the planes hit that paid out big time. The SEC investigated and found no evidence of insider information.
https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing1/witnes...
People buy options all the time, sometimes without any insider information, people buy options that happen to just perfectly line up with major market moving events.
Look at 9/11, there were several trades made right before the planes hit that paid out big time. The SEC investigated and found no evidence of insider information.
https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing1/witnes...
Who lost money during this deal? Or generally who indirectly paid these lucky gamblers?
This information just feeds my depression.
While I have no doubt that insider trading happens quite regularly, I would not jump to that conclusion here. IIRC the previous day, big Wall street names were advocating for a pause in tariffs . So a lot of people placed bets accordingly. Also staking 2.5M is "small change" for true insiders.
How can any trade be made and not know 'who' made the trade? Doesn't every trading account need to be registered/identified in some manner? KYC right? At a minimum the account holder would want to transfer funds to/from account....
I can't even buy sudafed without 3 forms of ID, yet we have 'invisible' traders of millions of dollars?
I can't even buy sudafed without 3 forms of ID, yet we have 'invisible' traders of millions of dollars?
Whenever I see similar articles I get reminded that all these are worthless paperless money, exchanging hands and playing a game. Futures, options, securities (and all the rest financial jargon) proves that there is a very big economic game at play in a global scale. No wonder the whole planet owes some trillions (to whom?) :-)
There is no need for scientists to prove we’re living inside a simulation, this whole global turn based strategy financial game, affecting our lives, is the proof that someone is having a laugh at/with us ;-)
There is no need for scientists to prove we’re living inside a simulation, this whole global turn based strategy financial game, affecting our lives, is the proof that someone is having a laugh at/with us ;-)
A relevant aside: surely insider trading is happening all the time? There are so many daily market-shifting events involving so many privy parties that it seems inevitable to happen every few minutes (not defending the actions in the article).
How many physicians have been able to get rich from learning a CEO will be out of commission? In that case, I'm not even sure whether it would be considered insider trading.
How does one even go about accusing someone of insider trading? The illegality sounds pretty unenforceable.
How many physicians have been able to get rich from learning a CEO will be out of commission? In that case, I'm not even sure whether it would be considered insider trading.
How does one even go about accusing someone of insider trading? The illegality sounds pretty unenforceable.
This unethical stuff is where Trump actually shows true “brilliance”.
His Truth Social post that day saying (quote) “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!” immediately gave any insider traders a perfect alibi.
His Truth Social post that day saying (quote) “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!” immediately gave any insider traders a perfect alibi.
Isn't this kind of thing going to destroy "trust" in the markets? Basically, people who don't have access to the advance/inside information will lose money to those that do - similar to betting in a casino where you know the odds are against you.
This could lead to a lot of investment in the U.S. being diverted elsewhere to markets that have some kind of regulation to prevent abuse.
This could lead to a lot of investment in the U.S. being diverted elsewhere to markets that have some kind of regulation to prevent abuse.
What actually is the point of selling someone an option? Do enough people buy them and lose to make it worthwhile for the seller? Isn't this literally just legalised gambling? Are there enough addicts to make it lucrative like other gambling? Or are these resold packaged up into something that nobody reads à la synthetic CDOs?
Saw some more granular charts on this for the different options here as well for those interested:
https://unusualwhales.substack.com/p/unusual-options-trading...
https://unusualwhales.substack.com/p/unusual-options-trading...
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If I am not mistaken, Trump said earlier that it's a great time to buy. Isn't there a chance that someone acted on that, seeing it as a hint?
Surely the number one suspect for having made this trade, is Trump himself (and/or his immediately family)? Nobody knew better exactly what would be announced and when, than the guy who did the announcing. Ownership could be hidden behind trust / shell structures, possibly indefinitely, or at least until it's too late for anyone to do anything about it (although in Trump's America, I doubt that anyone could do anything about it anyway). We already know that he's unscrupulous and unprincipled. We already know that he's an indicted felon.
This is my surprised face.
Elect a felon, you get felonies.
Elect a felon, you get felonies.
I mean in theory couldn’t anyone close to the news source transmit it somehow via an anonymous communication channel to someone else so they can make the trade. Even if there is an investigation they have to find the proof to make a conviction right?
As the old saying goes, there's an important distinction when it comes to appointments to oversee the Wall Street - DemocRATS appoint corrupt rats, while Republicans appoint imbeciles!
Therefore the outcome is always the same.
Therefore the outcome is always the same.
Actually, “we”, collectively, do know, because the SEC maintains an “XKEYSCORE for equities” called CAT.
If there was interest, the government could know exactly who placed these trades. But the call (options) are coming from inside the house.