5 ms·

3% stock market movements set in motion by the US president alone. "Great" insider trading potential. Have someone set up the right derivatives strategy and bam

3% stock market movements set in motion by the US president alone. "Great" insider trading potential. Have someone set up the right derivatives strategy and bam: instant millions. I couldn't convince myself to immediately write that idea off as utter nonsense. Anyone with more relevant financial experience? Can you reassure me this would be difficult to pull off? Or would you have to confirm this would be difficult to catch? EDIT: Let me try put this in an even more neutral way. Let's say one knew down to the minute when the entire US and EU stock markets were going to sustain substantial losses. How much value one could siphon off without triggering too much suspicion? Surely market depth and trade volume must offer at least order of magnitude hints about that?

busymom0 7y ago
Even IF this were the case, Insider trading has been allowed in congress for a long time. There was the STOCK act passed in 2012 to prevent it, the very next year it was amended to get rid of strict disclosure requirements. Nancy Pelosi for example (speaker of the democrat majority house) is worth 140 million dollars. One has to wonder how a life time politician has managed to get that much wealth.
- bodyfour 7y ago
  Speaker Pelosi married into money, so no need to "wonder" (or throw baseless allegations around)
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    She had some good book deals?
- sumedh 7y ago
  Chris Collins would have been a better example instead of Pelosi.
  - busymom0 7y ago
    Why? Chris is listed at 23.83 million whereas Pelosi is at 140 million. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-25-richest-members-of-congress/ss-BBmDr23?fullscreen=true?i10c.ua=1#image=7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-25-richest-membe...
    - edaemon 7y ago
      Collins was arrested and charged with insider trading in 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Collins_(American_politician)#2018_criminal_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Collins_(American_politi...
  - bayesian_horse 7y ago
    And many members of Trump's cabinet. I remember something like six ex- Goldman-Sachs partners? Multiple billionaires and corruption incidents at a breath taking frequency... I really don't like to blame rich people for their wealth. But boy, the people around Trump really make an effort to promote the image of rich people feeling entitled to more than they are legally allowed.
- romski 7y ago
  You could have just googled this years ago
umvi 7y ago
There's a GitHub project called trump2cash[1] or something that already does this [1] https://github.com/maxbbraun/trump2cash https://github.com/maxbbraun/trump2cash
- DogOnTheWeb 7y ago
  Interesting. Is any analysis of its performance available?
bayesian_horse 7y ago
I can remember this issue having been raised a lot of times before. The main issue is not so much about Trump himself, because he isn't sophisticated enough to profit of virtually anything more complicated than a licensing deal with money launderers, but rather the billionaire "friends" he talks to on the phone all the time.
wocram 7y ago
If you know the market is going to move in either direction, you can get at least 20x leverage to SPX using futures. You could get substantially more leverage using options, but that is more sensitive to knowing how large and fast the reaction will be.

busymom0 7y ago

Even IF this were the case, Insider trading has been allowed in congress for a long time. There was the STOCK act passed in 2012 to prevent it, the very next year it was amended to get rid of strict disclosure requirements. Nancy Pelosi for example (speaker of the democrat majority house) is worth 140 million dollars. One has to wonder how a life time politician has managed to get that much wealth.

bodyfour 7y ago
Speaker Pelosi married into money, so no need to "wonder" (or throw baseless allegations around)
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  She had some good book deals?
sumedh 7y ago
Chris Collins would have been a better example instead of Pelosi.
- busymom0 7y ago
  Why? Chris is listed at 23.83 million whereas Pelosi is at 140 million. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-25-richest-members-of-congress/ss-BBmDr23?fullscreen=true?i10c.ua=1#image=7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-25-richest-membe...
  - edaemon 7y ago
    Collins was arrested and charged with insider trading in 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Collins_(American_politician)#2018_criminal_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Collins_(American_politi...
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  And many members of Trump's cabinet. I remember something like six ex- Goldman-Sachs partners? Multiple billionaires and corruption incidents at a breath taking frequency... I really don't like to blame rich people for their wealth. But boy, the people around Trump really make an effort to promote the image of rich people feeling entitled to more than they are legally allowed.
romski 7y ago
You could have just googled this years ago

umvi 7y ago

There's a GitHub project called trump2cash[1] or something that already does this [1] https://github.com/maxbbraun/trump2cash https://github.com/maxbbraun/trump2cash

DogOnTheWeb 7y ago
Interesting. Is any analysis of its performance available?

bayesian_horse 7y ago

I can remember this issue having been raised a lot of times before. The main issue is not so much about Trump himself, because he isn't sophisticated enough to profit of virtually anything more complicated than a licensing deal with money launderers, but rather the billionaire "friends" he talks to on the phone all the time.

wocram 7y ago

If you know the market is going to move in either direction, you can get at least 20x leverage to SPX using futures. You could get substantially more leverage using options, but that is more sensitive to knowing how large and fast the reaction will be.