Analyst Adam Cochran flagged unusual activity in traditional markets. Unknown participants bought S&P 500 futures in a single trade worth $1.5B. At the same time, they sold oil futures totaling $192M. These volumes were 4–6 times higher than average trading activity at market close.
Timeline of Events
The day before, Donald Trump posted messages threatening bombings, giving 48 hours for his demands to be met. Market participants adjusted their strategies around this ultimatum. A day later, the president abruptly reversed his stance and announced the start of negotiations, which Iranian representatives immediately denied.
Investors executed large contracts exactly five minutes before the announcement about the negotiations was published.
According to Cochran, a small circle of individuals close to the president used non-public information to generate profits. The analyst claims that such trades siphon tens of billions of dollars from investment and pension funds held by retail traders.
Community Reaction and Bots
In the discussion under Cochran’s post, one user described the situation as standard Wall Street practice.
“Market makers simply read crowd sentiment better — it’s not a large-scale conspiracy, just the predictability of Trump’s actions,” he wrote.
Another participant rejected the idea of coincidence, pointing to the precise timing under the conditions of the active ultimatum.
Cochran also highlighted suspicious activity in the comments. For example, another participant posted a message that repeated the first commenter’s points word for word. Users in the thread interpreted this as bot activity promoting pre-prepared narratives.