Who is profiting from the President's unpredictability? (trading, stock, buying)

[1insider]

I've wondered many times if there were any questionable trades related to the President's tweets or announcement like the one in August at the G7 about the phone call with China “China called last night our top trade people and said, ‘Let’s get back to the table.’ So we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something,” That one turned out to be a complete fabrication intended to move the market. Vanity Fair did a piece about unknown traders taking advantage of the seemingly random announcements. From that article:

In the last 10 minutes of trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday, September 13, someone got very lucky. That’s when he or she, or a group of people, sold short 120,000 “S&P e-minis”—electronically traded futures contracts linked to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index—when the index was trading around 3010. The time was 3:50 p.m. in New York; it was nearing midnight in Tehran. A few hours later, drones attacked a large swath of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, choking off production in the country and sending oil prices soaring. By the time the CME next opened, for pretrading on Sunday night, the S&P index had fallen 30 points, giving that very fortunate trader, or traders, a quick $180 million profit.

[rjm1cc]

Probably the same people that trade on any news.

[1insider]

Yep. Just regular traders buying over half the days volume in S&P minis ten minutes before close on multiple days before major market moving events. We could all have done it.

[flamadiddle]

I've done pretty well buying on the dips. The underlying economy is strong so every time there's an event/tweet or whatever that causes irrational panic, I buy more.

I'm not brave enough to sell short or try triple leveraged plays though.

[ohio_peasant]

One conjecture is that at any given moment, for any given reason, somebody out-there is buying/selling a particular thing, or option on that thing. News happens, shares rise or fall. Half of the traders win, and half lose. Who writes the subsequent narrative? How often do we hear about the traders who anticipated some event, but said event never transpired? Or who got blindsided?

It is not impossible, especially in the present political climate, that certain individuals receive warning of impending political decisions, and take trading-action accordingly. It remains to be proven, however, that actual market action follows anticipation. "Insider knowledge" may to turn to be wrong, or even if right, it is only transient.

I regard such insider-trading, if it exists, as a form of taxation on the rest of us. It's a burden and a ballast. But is it large? These insiders, who purportedly are making hundreds of billions, probably are not making trillions. What does gain or lose trillions, is mass-reactions, and these reactions feed on themselves.

Here's hoping for placid and well-mannered markets.

[SuiteLiving]

Originally Posted by 1insider

I've wondered many times if there were any questionable trades related to the President's tweets or announcement like the one in August at the G7 about the phone call with China “China called last night our top trade people and said, ‘Let’s get back to the table.’ So we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something,” That one turned out to be a complete fabrication intended to move the market. Vanity Fair did a piece about unknown traders taking advantage of the seemingly random announcements. From that article:

In the last 10 minutes of trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday, September 13, someone got very lucky. That’s when he or she, or a group of people, sold short 120,000 “S&P e-minis”—electronically traded futures contracts linked to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index—when the index was trading around 3010. The time was 3:50 p.m. in New York; it was nearing midnight in Tehran. A few hours later, drones attacked a large swath of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, choking off production in the country and sending oil prices soaring. By the time the CME next opened, for pretrading on Sunday night, the S&P index had fallen 30 points, giving that very fortunate trader, or traders, a quick $180 million profit.

Odd that a story about "Trump Chaos Trades" opens up with an example that had nothing to do with Trump.

Author happens to be on CNBC now and doesn't seem to know his subject matter as well as I would have thought he would.

[turkeydance]

"Who is profiting from the President's unpredictability?"
apparently, just about everyone.

[leastprime]

I keep losing in my trading accounts, nuf said.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

His friends, including Putin.

[TuborgP]

Anyone who gets alerted to what he is going to tweet or do beforehand that will have a market impact.