Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense
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Havoc
vkou
The war must continue in order to bring us to the status quo that was in place before we started the war.
I hope that everyone responsible for this is enjoying every cent of what they get to pay at the pumps.
skinfaxi
> I hope that everyone responsible for this is enjoying every cent of what they get to pay at the pumps.
As if the people responsible actually feel the impact of their choices to that degree.
kelvinjps10
Maybe at least the people that put them in power (voters). But being honest, it wasn't just voters.
hrldcpr
Arguably people who voted for Trump are somewhat responsible, and include a lot of car drivers.
(Not to imply that many Democrat politicians aren't also owned by AIPAC and big business.)
an0malous
A lot of Trump supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Dave Smith, voted for him because of his anti-war stance during campaigning. I’m not defending their poor judgement of an infamous con artist (I didn’t vote for Trump) but we should ask ourselves how democracy can function if candidates can just make things up during campaigns and do the complete opposite when they’re elected. We should also ask ourselves who really wanted this war and how they have so much leverage over our country to instigate it when 50-60% of Americans do not support it. We should ask how it’s possible that such unpopular wars always seem to have bipartisan support. We should also ask ourselves how Congress failed to stop this war which has been illegally executed without congressional approval. It’s all very curious if you think about it.
We can’t just keep finger pointing at the other party whenever things go wrong. There are systemic issues and outside influences destroying this country. Some people think this will all be fixed when democrats take over again in November but they’re wrong and the cycle will continue just with a more presentable veneer of decency.
pjc50
> Tucker Carlson
I'd just like to remind everyone that this guy got fired from Fox News for being too extreme an idealogue.
> I’m not defending their poor judgement of an infamous con artist
At some point you have to hold adult Republicans accountable for their actions. They were warned repeatedly; they chose to ignore the warnings.
> ask how it’s possible that such unpopular wars always seem to have bipartisan support
Americans love war and guns! This is like, #1 national characteristic as observed by other nations. Especially because America always wins in the movies! The reason Americans are complaining about the Iran war and not the illegal Venezuelan invasion or whatever is because they are losing.
(who on earth is Dave Smith?)
troyvit
> but we should ask ourselves how democracy can function if candidates can just make things up during campaigns and do the complete opposite when they’re elected.
Education. Actually teaching people how to think critically about what they see and hear needs to start as soon as they get a phone in their hand, if not sooner. That education in critical thinking needs to come from family, school, social clubs and religious institutions. I don't think that'll ever happen in America though. Our economy depends on people not thinking critically.
rash1aq
This comment contains so many different issues that it is impossible to say why it is downvoted. My guess is that any comment that mentions bipartisanship is going to be downvoted.
US foreign policy is and has always been bipartisan. One side is a bit more restrained and has better manners, the other overtly says what is going on.
Yes, Tucker Carlson should have known what was going to happen because he has been in politics for so long. For the average voter who is busy with other things, it takes at least 8 years of intensely following one Democrat president and one Republican. The mainstream media is of little use, since they report daily statements and political theater.
You need to read the think tank papers and follow bipartisan hearings like the Senate Armed Services Committee where there is no difference between R/D except for blaming the other side for current events.
kingleopold
"lying is free" and it has no consequences for these people. whether it is WMDs or war or fiat money printing with trillions or killing millions. What you people call justice is, well it's obv. so no need to write about it. These facts dont change with two party or three party, it's cultural btw.
We all know how some cultures are violent and backwards to each other? some or like this, just different culture
vkou
> A lot of Trump supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Dave Smith, voted for him because of his anti-war stance during campaigning.
That was just their nice-sounding excuse for voting for him. It's not like they are going to go out and say that they like him because of his jingoistic machismo authoritarian 'strong'-man bullshit.
They'll performatively grumble for a bit, but are all ready to vote for the guy a fourth time in 2028.
PunchyHamster
they earned millions off it, how would they even feel fuel price ?
ericmay
[flagged]
fabian2k
And what did the attack accomplish? It did degrade the Iranian military somewhat. It killed the Iranian leadership, but odds are the replacements are simply even more radical and opposed to the US.
The nuclear material is probably still buried in the facilities attacked in the earlier strikes (not the war this year). That is a delay on any potential nuclear weapons development, but not more than that.
It showed Iran and the world just how much damage they can cause with their control over the strait. And it removed any factor that previously led Iran towards not blocking the strait even when attacked. In the end the odds are that this whole mess will cause death and suffering, damage the world economy and we'll likely end up with an even more dangerous Iran in the future.
mrtesthah
That’s not what US intelligence says.
The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/06/trump-gabbard-comments-on-...
therobots927
Maybe if Iran had a nuke Israel would cut back on sexual torture of detainees and indiscriminate bombing of vast swaths of densely populated land. And maybe the US would think twice about spending $10 trillion fighting pointless wars in the region. I’m in favor of that scenario.
cm2187
[flagged]
customguy
Every time this gets repeated without a shred of evidence I have to think of the "beheaded babies" thing. "Feel better about the crimes against humanity you see us doing and bragging about by reading this spam email from a Nigerian prince once again, this time with even more pomp and even less details, even less pretense of actually caring or being honest."
adrian_b
And killing Iranians and destroying their assets helps how the Iranian opposition?
simonh
Almost all the troops that committed those massacres are still there, and if anything even more ready and willing to do it all over again, and have a leadership ready to give the order.
sirtaj
Odd thing to blame on a bunch of schoolgirls!
gmerc
I thought it was a lot more than that, Gaza is not a small place
gambiting
Can you formulate in a short paragraph, why you think US attacked Iran, exactly.
undefined
snapcaster
[flagged]
leonidasrup
Someone has taken the Rothschild motto too literally:
“Buy when there is blood in the streets, even if it is your own.” — Baron Nathan Rothschild
https://medium.com/@douglasp.schwartz/buy-when-theres-blood-...
tim333
That was referring to equities. The modern version should be short oil when there is blood in the street and the president truths.
breppp
[flagged]
zuzululu
Not really seeing the connection there. You buy low and sell high.
pphysch
The only place I've heard that name come up recently is the very real and close association to Jeffrey Epstein
kitsune1
[dead]
bigyabai
You have a curious habit of comparing your opponents to Nazis. You should be careful, that's +40 points on the crackpot index.
KKKKkkkk1
source?
undefined
joshrw
That’s not what that quote means. It means even if your portfolio is down you should keep buying.
debo_
That's what they meant by "too literally."
limbero
No, the "quote" (more like anonymous anecdote) is quite literally about blood running in the streets presenting an opportunity to buy assets at reduced cost.
undefined
aaron695
[dead]
declan_roberts
Criminal probe into this started last month.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-probes-suspicious...
apexalpha
As if anything in the executive branch of the US still works properly.
Isn't the FBI already raiding the homes of political opponents for intimidation?
The famed US constitution with all its 'checks and balances' they would never shut up about turned out to be papier mâché and completely trampled by the first person that tried.
atmavatar
> The famed US constitution with all its 'checks and balances' they would never shut up about turned out to be papier mâché and completely trampled by the first person that tried.
If we're being completely honest, the checks and balances in the constitution ended within the first decade. They were only designed to work in the case that the three branches of government were truly separate and adversarial with one another.
The creation of political parties largely eliminated them, both because they cross-cut branches and because the first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system virtually guaranteed the parties would have nearly even representation most of the time.
That it's greatest likelihood of collapse comes between 236 and 243 years later (depending on whether you count from the end of the revolutionary war or ratification of the constitution) is a goddamn miracle.
Galanwe
I dont think the problem is parties by themselves. I think it's more the fact that the US system cannot accomodate more than 2 parties.
Plenty of other democracies have parties, including cross government branches.
What makes the US unique, and fragile, is that no party other than democrats and republicans can realistically exist.
It over emphasizes partisanship above anything (including honesty, morality) because career politicians in one party just have nowhere to go if they are dissident.
You can see that in plain sight currently, with republicans being in the total incapacity of contradicting their party line on anything, even the most obvious of lies.
In most other democracies, dissidents would have just created a new party and moved on, that wouldnt be "carrier ending" for them.
tim333
>constitution ... turned out to be papier mâché
Give it time.
zuzululu
I think they made off with at least $200M
that is "too big to prosecute against extremely creative and well paid law firm" territory
SoftTalker
If you are trading in the futures market and you don't have inside info or are not an actual supplier of the commodity, you are the sucker.
spacebanana7
To be fair, you could also be a real world user of a commodity and productively use futures markets. For example, an airline or trucking company using them to hedge fuel prices.
nyeah
Sure, and increasingly those people are being played for suckers. The article makes that point.
mothballed
Less so than those buying it for spot? They need oil one way or another, whether from a future contract or the spot market (or downstream thereof).
tardedmeme
Then your average price is higher than average. I heard airlines don't use futures any more because they need to keep costs low.
rbanffy
Future exists to stabilize instantaneous commodity prices.
They also allow some insights on future demand, which can help you plan production of your commodity.
jimlawruk
Isn't there a 50% chance you are betting on the "insider" side of it?
adamandsteve
There's a <50% chance you'll make money off of it because it's zero-sum, and if insiders make money on average then other traders (i.e., you) have to lose money on average.
The issue is that the odds aren't actually 50/50 on you buying either side of the trade; one half will look like a better deal (and given public information, it is a better deal) so you'll buy that half. Then when the market resolves, it'll turn out that insiders knew some piece of information that made the other half of the trade a better choice.
jimlawruk
So then the person who uses public information is actually the bigger fool than someone who uses no information whatsoever and just picks a side of the bet. If insiders know that a volcano is going to erupt and offers a 50/50 payout, people who know the historical improbability will bet that is will NOT erupt, thinking it is an easy payout. But there will be some idiots out there that bet that it will erupt based on dumb luck.
tardedmeme
If that was the case you'd start consistently buying the side that looks worse, which would align with insiders and you'd make money.
ahaferburg
Yes. It's a conditional probability.
P(W | You're a sucker) = 0.5
zuzululu
actually futures market is hardest to rig compare to options and stocks but markets are also efficient they say.
hard to win at a game where 97% fail in the long run.
otterley
That logic would also extend to individual stocks, wouldn’t it?
avidruntime
It kind of can, but trading futures is trading termed contracts, kind of like options, but a bit stranger (and you can buy options for futures contracts too!) For a retail trader, you definitely are not in a buy and hold/invest mindset. Often people use futures as a hedge or for locking in prices for physical delivery- it serves a very real world problem.
staplor
If you consider 'trading' to be short term buying and selling of stocks, then yeah. Holding stocks long term is nothing like trading commodities though.
SoftTalker
I suppose if you're shorting or trading options generally, yes to some extent.
cindyllm
[dead]
lbriner
The scary thing for me is that in the US, the President and by extension the DoJ has a lot of power to override any legal protections that exist in most countries. In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone.
In the US, for some reason, if you are a danger to the President's friends, you can be fired/your department can just be shutdown executively and this isn't just about Trump, it is about a serious weakness in the systems of governance.
pjc50
> In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone.
I would not rely on that. The Attorney General can withdraw prosecutions, and is a government minister (although not technically in the Cabinet).
Parliament can do anything, it just usually doesn't. This includes retroactive legislation to decide that you did not win a lawsuit that you actually did win (Reilly and Wilson v Secretary of State, although that itself was eventually ruled unlawful). The infinite delay of Bloody Sunday prosecutions is probably the biggest example in UK discourse.
No country is safe from this if enough authoritarian-collaborator political appointments are made (such as happened to SCOTUS). It should really be viewed as a form of coup.
Someone1234
Yep; I think the above comment took the wrong lessons.
What actually happened in the US is that "common norms and expectations" were thrown out the window, so instead of the question being "What is traditionally done?" it became "What can legally be done?" And, as it turns out, when you're only constrained by the letter of the law the executive branch is insanely powerful.
UK politics, more than most younger countries, is particularly susceptible to this. Norms, traditionally, and commonly understood standards make up a scary amount of constraints on the powers of government. If anyone gained power that only feels limited by the letter of the law (i.e. throws out norms, traditions, and standards), the UK is in serious trouble and Parliament hasn't moved to address it.
Somewhat ironically (given how unpopular it is), the Lords may be the best back-stop the UK has. Particularly the 30%~ which do not originate from politics.
TheGRS
People in the US have been bemoaning the ceding of power of Congress to the Executive branch for a long time. I think what's happening now is validating that rights laws are all subject to the whims of the people in power. There is nothing keeping Congress from reasserting their power and getting a grip over things, but they won't for the political risks involved. Heads would roll, nobody wants to be one of them.
tardedmeme
It sailed straight past "What can legally be done?" to "What can be done without me going to jail?"
atmavatar
> And, as it turns out, when you're only constrained by the letter of the law the executive branch is insanely powerful.
It's not even constrained by the letter of the law. The current administration has done quite a few things which are blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.
Trump has done so, safe in the knowledge that the impeachment process can't work so long as the Republican party holds a majority in the House, and a conviction can't occur so long as the Republican party controls at least 41 seats in the Senate.
Furthermore, due to the presidential immunity power created out of thin air by the Supreme Court in US v. Trump, he is shielded even from investigation so long as it can be successfully argued any potential crimes were done as part of official duties.
Lastly, his advanced age virtually guarantees he'll die long before any such prosecution could clear the legal hoops required for conviction after leaving office (assuming he ever does), even in the rare circumstances a Democrat could be found with enough spine to actually move forward with one.
soerxpso
How is this at my expense? It's at the expense of the hedge fund they bought the oil futures from before the price went up. I don't see why I should assume that some hedge fund manager is more on my side than some insider trader.
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe
I think insider trading is robing the market, which affects everyone.
imglorp
What if the whole point of the war was planned to generate trading opportunities? Every crazy tweet or announcement another cash out.
It's like every time you see a poorly run business and you think, how can they stay open? The answer is it's usually a laundering operation, a tax shelter, and who knows what else. The message to us poors is, nothing these people do is as it appears; there's always a bunch of stacked, leveraged advantages.
https://newrepublic.com/post/192244/trump-celebrates-destroy...
fireant
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. If you look at effects of geopolitical events and who profits and loses, rather than stated intentions. This global oil crisis, the Ukraine crisis, tariffs ect. It's the equivalent of the "the purpose of the system is what it does".
Oil crisis: Trumps friends profit on insider info, US oil industry (also his friends) profits, Russia profits because they are another big oil producer, USD dominance is harmed (also helps Russia), everyone else in the world eats the costs
Ukraine: Russia bleeds, Ukraine bleeds, arms industry profits, politicians in general get something to grandstand on in front of the voters. Personally I believe that this conflict has been artificially prolonged just to amplify the effects
Tariffs: US public eats the costs, Trump profits politically by appearing strong, Trumps friends profit on insider info
mannanj
Heard of the documentary, "Everything is a Rich Man's trick"? It's quite eye opening, and makes this similar conclusion with evidence pointing to the Rich Men through history. Highly recommend a watch.
chneu
While I don't think trump and co are smart enough to plan big stuff like this, I think it is pretty obvious they are trying to benefit oil companies and I have no doubt oil companies were involved in the decision to bomb Iran to some degree.
What I mean is Trump and Co probably spoke to oil execs before making the Iran decision to ask if they would raise production. Then they lied and said yes, while knowing they would drag their feet as prices rose.
Trump is a stoog. The folks around him treat him like an idiot. There's no way they weren't involved here. They've been around his entire presidency.
_-_-__-_-_-
All the more reason to consider small hybrid vehicles and full-electric vehicles where charging is plentiful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI)
bkovacev
So, what should we buy next? There can be bread for all of us :D
mikaeluman
I don't see many comments here about the actual topic. Such is the case with anything Trump related.
Needless to say, though I consider Krugman to have failed at practically every prediction he made in his NYT columns, his point is very valid.
No one should stand for this. Unfortunately a very bad precedence has been set by many politicians in the US.
I find it hard to see that this would ever change if the governing authorities are as tame and neutered as they seem to be.
Ultimately it is a question of how to root out corruption. And it must be a path 90% agree on. I don't see it as helpful to become emotive.
The real curious part to me is why there are such large reactions when neither the US nor the Iranians seem to be truthful and seem to agree even on what they disagree on...
noIdeaTheSecond
> "The Trump administration is making no real effort to crack down on whoever is trading using inside information, and these inside traders are operating with a complete sense of impunity, assured that they can get away with it."
I think this sums it up.
blitzar
The inside trader made no real effort to crack down on themselves
wartywhoa23
The Ouroboros is smart enough to not get annihilated by biting its tail. Mind the gap, eh?
bcjdjsndon
If only the NYMEX somehow knew who ordered a trade
bloomingeek
Indeed, since 2016.
NordStreamYacht
Why would they turn off the tap for easy money?
hatradiowigwam
Welcome to the world of commodity trading. There is no SEC here, and this is business as usual. You can look at T&S to see this for yourself, but this is (like it or not) how this typically goes in commodity markets.
declan_roberts
Commodity trading is managed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC and a criminal probe into this started last month.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-probes-suspicious...
utopiah
Does the SEC even matter anymore with the current administration?
ruilov
I'd like to see the base rate. Ie were there similar bets at similar times when Trump did not make an announcement
scrivna
Look at Adobe stock 10 minutes before the Claude Design announcement came out… the volume spike there is out of the ordinary and I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence, someone knew something. The level of blatant insider trading at the moment is pretty wild
sagebird
same, without context it is speculation. even with context, if the person creating the story controls the window, a window can be found which supports the story.
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The worst part is the sharp changes in the price being traded aren't achieved by magic but rather with guns & actual human suffering