Beyond the Middle East war, there are other examples of trade activity that have raised eyebrows. On April 2 of last year, Trump announced what he called Emancipation Day, a sweeping set of tariffs on goods from virtually every country in the world. Stock markets around the globe fell sharply. But a week later, when Trump announced a 90-day “pause” on tariffs for all countries except China, stock markets rose sharply. The S&P 500 index rose 9.5%, one of its biggest daily gains since World War II.
Throughout US President Donald Trump’s second term, traders have been betting millions of dollars just before he makes big announcements. The BBC has examined trading volume data on several financial markets and compared it to some of the president’s most significant market-moving statements. It found a consistent pattern of increases just hours, or sometimes minutes, before a social media post or media interview is made public.
Some analysts say this bears the hallmarks of illegal insider trading, where bets are made by people based on information not available to the general public. Others say the picture is more complicated and that some traders have become more adept at predicting the president’s interventions. Here are five of the most notable examples:
MARCH 9, 2026
Some of the biggest moves have been in oil futures trading. Nine days after the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Trump told CBS News in a telephone interview that the conflict was “almost over.” Oil traders reacted to the news that the conflict could end much sooner than expected by selling oil, with the price falling by about 25%. However, market data shows that a huge spike in bets was placed on the price of oil just 47 minutes before the news was released. Traders who placed these bets will have made millions of dollars from the move in oil prices.
MARCH 23, 2026
On March 23, just two days after Trump threatened to “destroy” Iran’s nuclear power plants, he posted on TruthSocial that Washington had had “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE TALK” with Tehran about a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION” of hostilities. It was a big surprise to diplomatic observers and traders. Immediately, stocks rose and the price of U.S. crude oil, which had been rising, fell sharply. As the BBC reported at the time, there had been an unusually high number of bets on the price of U.S. oil in the 14 minutes before the president’s tweet. The same pattern was seen among traders buying contracts for Brent crude, the other major oil benchmark. The trading seemed “abnormal, for sure,” one oil analyst told the BBC at the time.
APRIL 9, 2025
Beyond the Middle East war, there are other examples of trade activity that have raised eyebrows. On April 2 of last year, Trump announced what he called Emancipation Day, a sweeping set of tariffs on goods from virtually every country in the world. Stock markets around the globe fell sharply. But a week later, when Trump announced a 90-day “pause” on tariffs for all countries except China, stock markets rose sharply. The S&P 500 index rose 9.5%, one of its biggest daily gains since World War II.
Again, an unusual trading pattern preceded these events with an unusually high number of bets ahead of the announcement of a fund tracking the S&P 500.
The number of contracts traded rose to more than 10,000 per minute shortly after 6 p.m. Earlier in the day, the number had been in the hundreds. Some traders bet more than $2 million on the stock market to rise that day, despite having lost seven straight days. The huge surge could have netted them a profit of nearly $20 million. Later that week, senior Democrats in the U.S. Senate wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asking the financial regulator to investigate whether the president’s announcements “enriched administration insiders and cronies at the expense of the American public.” When asked by the BBC whether it had looked into the allegations, an SEC spokesman declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the White House did not respond to a BBC request for comment on any of the unusual trading activities analyzed in this report.
JANUARY 3, 2026
December 2025: Burdensome-Mix account created
January 2, 2026: Account places $32,000 for Maduro’s overthrow
January 3, 2026: Maduro is captured and Burdensome-Mix wins $436
The recent rise of online prediction markets has also caught the attention of observers. Blockchain-powered platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi offer users the opportunity to speculate on everything from the weather to baseball to US foreign policy. President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, is an investor in Polymarket and is a member of its advisory board. He also acts as a strategic advisor to Kalshi and was contacted by the BBC for comment.
In December 2025, a user created an account on Polymarket called Burdensome-Mix. On December 30, she placed her first bet that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be out of office by the end of January 2026. Between December 30 and January 2, Burdensome-Mix placed a total of $32,500 on this position. When Maduro was captured by US special forces and overthrown the next day, Burdensome-Mix won $436,000. Shortly after, the account changed its username and has not placed any bets since.
FEBRUARY 28, 2026
February 2026: Six accounts created on Polymarket
February 28: Accounts earn $1.2 million combined
According to blockchain analysis website Bubblemaps, six accounts were created on Polymarket in February. All of them placed bets on a US attack on Iran that would occur by February 28. When the attacks were confirmed by President Trump in the early hours of that day, the accounts won a combined $1.2 million. Five of those six users have not placed any more bets since, but one of the account’s recent activities shows that it then won $163 by correctly betting on a US-Iran ceasefire by April 7, which was announced by Washington and Tehran that day.
Polymarket told the BBC that it “establishes, maintains and enforces the highest standards of market integrity”, adding that it works “proactively” with regulators and law enforcement to do so. In March this year, both Polymarket and Kalshi outlined new rules to crack down on insider trading.
Prediction markets fall under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC did not respond to a BBC request for comment, but its chairman recently told a congressional committee that his organization had “zero tolerance” for fraud and insider trading. It has also been revealed that the White House sent an internal email to staff last month warning them not to use inside information to place bets on prediction 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.”
DIFFICULT TO PROVE
Insider trading has been illegal for most Americans since the passage of the Securities Act in 1933. It was expanded to include U.S. government officials in 2012, although to date no one has been prosecuted under the law. Paul Oudin, a professor specializing in financial regulatory law at ESSEC Business School, says the rules are difficult to enforce.
“Financial authorities will not prosecute if they cannot understand who the source of the information is,” says Oudin. None of the US financial authorities contacted by the BBC admitted any of the insider trading allegations. “You can have massive trades in a financial instrument that clearly show that someone was aware of what Donald Trump was about to say,” says Oudin. “However, there is a strong chance that no one will be prosecuted,” he concludes. (BBC)