A massive, perfectly timed surge in futures trading just minutes before President Donald Trump announced a halt to planned strikes on Iran has sparked immense outrage, with lawmakers and veteran traders alleging blatant market manipulation.
Unexplained Pre-Market Surge
According to a CNBC report, trading volumes for S&P 500 e-Mini futures and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil futures spiked anomalously at 6:50 a.m. in New York. In the typically thin liquidity of early trading hours, this sudden burst stood out as one of the largest volume moments of the session.
Exactly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and that he was canceling planned strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. Immediately following the announcement, S&P 500 futures soared over 2.5%, while WTI crude dropped nearly 6%.
Market analyst Adam Cochran noted that $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures were bought and $192 million in oil futures were sold in a single clip right before the news broke—a trade size four to six times larger than normal.
This post was originally published here
