Concerns have surfaced after a series of high-dollar trades that preceded several of President Donald Trump’s major policy statements and related geopolitical developments. Market data and reviews of prediction-market activity show a pattern of concentrated, well-timed wagers that took place minutes or hours before public announcements or military actions.
March 23, 2026 - Oil trades just before Trump’s announced pause on Iran attacks
Shortly before the President announced a five-day delay to planned strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, an unidentified trader or traders registered heavy selling in crude futures. Exchange records and calculations show a roughly $500 million outlay on Brent and WTI contracts executed within a single minute. Data from LSEG indicates 5,100 lots changed hands between 1049 and 1050 GMT, with selling dominating volume.
When the President’s social media post announcing the five-day pause was published at 1105 GMT, trading accelerated: over 13,000 lots - the equivalent of 13 million barrels - traded within 60 seconds. Prices plunged afterward, with Brent retreating to $99 per barrel from $112 and WTI sliding to $86 from $99, a roughly 15% drop in oil values following the announcement.
February 28, 2026 - Prediction-market wagers around strikes on Iran and the death of the Iranian supreme leader
Activity on prediction markets drew heightened attention around the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that occurred on February 28. A review of Polymarket at the time showed about $529 million wagered on a range of contracts tied to the timing of those strikes, while roughly $150 million was staked on bets related to the removal of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader.
Analytics firm Bubblemaps identified six accounts that collectively made about $1.2 million in profit from Polymarket bets that were funded in the hours immediately before the raids. Separately, Kalshi is facing a lawsuit alleging it failed to pay $54 million to people who had bet that Khamenei would leave office before March 1; the company says it does not offer markets that settle on death.
Democratic lawmakers pressed concerns about prediction markets after wagers were placed on platforms including Polymarket just prior to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. One U.S. Representative flagged a specific Polymarket bet placed shortly before the February 28 strikes.
In parallel market moves, despite hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data that would typically encourage selling long-dated Treasuries, traders moved into the benchmark 10-year note on February 27, pushing yields below 4%. Analysts noted that such a concentrated shift into a safe-haven asset would usually be driven by a negative macro event or a strong expectation that one was imminent. Equity sectors sensitive to fuel costs reacted that week as well; shares of U.S. airlines fell and the Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index slipped 5.13%.
January 3, 2026 - Rapid gains on a bet tied to the capture of Nicolas Maduro
Another notable instance involved a Polymarket account that profited after wagers tied to the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The account built positions in contracts that implied long odds for Maduro’s removal prior to a weekend raid on his compound in Caracas by U.S. special forces. Those initial wagers were worth about $34,000 before the operation; after news of the capture emerged on January 3, the account’s positions rose in value, yielding an approximately $410,000 gain for the unknown trader.
April 9, 2025 - Options volume ahead of a tariff pause announcement
Market data from April last year showed a spike in options activity immediately before a tariff pause announcement that triggered a large market rally. President Trump’s Truth Social post pausing tariffs came at 1:18 p.m. ET on April 9, and the S&P 500 jumped roughly 9.5% following the announcement.
Certain options contracts logged heightened trading just before the post. Around 1 p.m. ET, some 5,105 SPY call options traded for an average price of $4.20. As the market rallied, those calls surged in value, trading as high as about $42 and reflecting a paper increase from about $2.14 million to roughly $21.44 million. Other SPY calls that bet on the ETF rising above $509 were active near 1:10 p.m. ET; their value rose to about $10 million by the close, up from $624,000 earlier in the day.
It could not be determined from available data whether the options were purchased by one trader or multiple parties, or whether positions were closed for an actual gain.
Official response and market ethics
A White House spokesman noted that government ethics guidelines bar federal employees from profiting off nonpublic information. "Any implication that Administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible," he said in an emailed statement.
Implications for market surveillance
The collection of episodes - concentrated futures trades, prediction-market wagers and clustered options activity directly ahead of public announcements or operations - has prompted closer scrutiny from regulators, lawmakers and market participants. Observers are focused on whether the timing and size of these trades reflect legitimate market positioning or point to the presence of privileged information that reached traders before public disclosure.
Note: This report compiles trading and market activity tied to the specific events and figures described above. It does not reach conclusions about causation beyond the documented timing and amounts of trades and public announcements.