Insider trading or flawless timing? Top examples as suspicions grow on Trump-linked trades

US President Donald Trump's second term has witnessed several instances of traders placing bets worth millions of dollars before he makes major announcements. According to a BBC report, a consistent pattern of market spikes has emerged just hours, or sometimes minutes, before a social media post from the President's account or media interview was made public.

The British news service pored over volume data in many financial markets and found a correlation with President's most significant market-moving statements.

The BBC report quotes analysts saying that the correlation between Trump's statements and spikes in financial markets signal toward illegal insider trading. Usually, insider trading bets are made by people based on information that is not available to the general public.

Other analysts say labelling such transactions as insider trading is very complicated and point out that some traders have been become more dexterous in anticipating the President's statements.

BBC cited five such examples it came across after carefully screening the market volume data and correlating them to the US President's Trump's statements. 

March 9, 2026: 'The war is very complete, pretty much'

On the Ninth day of the US-Israel and Iran war, Trump in a phone interview to CBS News said the conflict was "very complete, pretty much". The interview was made public at 15:16 Eastern Time (19:16 GMT) when the reporter posted about it on X.

But according to BBC, at 18:29 GMT, huge bets were made on the price of oil falling- 47 minutes ahead of the reporter's post. 

After the interview went public, oil fell by 25%. 

Traders would have earned millions of dollars from the movement in oil prices.

March 23, 2026: 'Complete and total resolution to hostilities'

On March 21, Trump posted on Truth Social that Washington had held "VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS" with Tehran over a "COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION" to hostilities.

The post came just two days after Trump threatened to "obliterate" Iran's power plants. 

Interestingly, from 10:48 to 10:50 GMT, bets on WTI crude and brent crude oil rose. 

An oil analyst told BBC that these trades appeared "abnormal, for sure." 

At 11:04 GMT, Trump posted about total resolution to hostilities. 

A minute later, oil fell by 11%. 

April 9, 2025: 'Liberation Day' pause

The war bets were not the only instances the BBC report mentions. Trump on April 2 last year announced a sweeping set of tariffs on goods on almost every country which he termed  'Liberation Day'. Subsequently, global markets crashed. 

A week later, Trump announced a 90-day "pause" on the tariffs for all countries. In reaction, S&P 500 index zoomed 9.5% - one of its largest single-day gains since the Second World War.

The report states that at 18:00 BST (British Summer time), traders started making big bets on stock market rally. 

At 18:18 BST, Trump announced a pause on tariffs . A minute later the US stock market started a historic surge. 

The report further states that the number of contracts jumped to over 10,000 per minute just after 18:00 BST compared to hundreds earlier in the day.

Some traders placed bets worth over $2m on the stock market rally that day despite seven days of losses. The stock market rally could have generated a profit of almost $20 mn.

The rally prompted several senior Democrats in the US Senate to request the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to probe whether Trump's announcements "enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public".

A spokesman for the SEC declined to comment after BBC asked whether it had investigated these allegations.  

Jan 3, 2026: Maduro apprehended

The recent growth of online predictions markets has also drawn scrutiny from observers. Blockchain-powered platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi offer users the chance to speculate on anything from the weather to baseball to US foreign policy.

President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr, is an investor in Polymarket and sits on its advisory board. He also acts as a strategic advisor to Kalshi and has been contacted by the BBC for comment.

In December 2025, one user made an account on Polymarket called Burdensome-Mix. On December 30, the account made its first bet that Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro would out of office by the end of January 2026.

Burdensome-Mix poured $32,500 between 30 December and January 2 on the position.

When US special forces apprehended Maduro and ousted the following day, Burdensome-Mix won $436,000.

Shortly after making money, the account changed its username and has not placed any bets since.

28 Feb 2026: Strikes on Iran

In February 2026, six accounts were created on Polymarket. They placed bets on a US strike on Iran happening by February 28. 

After Trump confirmed attacks on Iran, in early hours of February 28, the accounts earned $1.2 m between them. Of those six users, five have stopped placing bets since. 

But but one of the account's recent activity signals that the $163,000 were made by correctly betting on a US-Iran ceasefire by 7 April, which was announced by Washington and Tehran on that day.

The White House in March warned its staff not to use insider information to place bets on predictions in markets. 

Spokesman Davis Ingle told the BBC at the time that "any implication that Administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting".

Crackdown on Insider Trading

In a related development, Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Michael Selig, who was appointed by President Donald Trump on April 17 said his agency was investigating hundreds of possible cases of prediction-based trading.

Selig tried to address rising concerns about prediction markets, where traders could place bets on everything from sports to elections, entertainment, the weather and sometimes even war.