Last evening, by around 4.20 pm in India, something peculiar happened on the other side of the world. It was a quiet pre-market hour in New York, when global markets were already falling on fresh Iran tensions. Suddenly, someone made two very large, supposedly very well-timed bets. And this has now raised major suspicions.
According to the reports from outlets such as NDTV, someone bought S&P 500 futures worth $1.5 billion (that is about ₹12,600 crore), betting on a market rally. At the same time, they supposedly sold oil futures of $192 million, or ₹1,615 crore, placing another wager on a fall in crude prices.
Reports state that in a single one-minute window, Brent and WTI contracts worth roughly $580 million, four to six times normal volume for that hour, changed hands.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, at 7.05 am New York time, US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States had held talks with Iran and would halt planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days.
Markets moved exactly as the trades had predicted. S&P 500 futures jumped more than 2.5 per cent. Oil prices plunged sharply. By some estimates, the oil position alone could have generated over $100 million (around ₹840 crore) in profits within twenty minutes, with equity gains pushing the total significantly higher.
The only problem is that there was no public signal or scheduled announcement when the bets were placed. The massive, precisely timed market calls will soon be under scrutiny.
As of now, market-specific agencies Reuters and Bloomberg have yet to report anything in this line. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not yet commented. The White House denied any insider trading.
Many hedge fund managers are calling the trade "highly unusual", and even Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, denied that any negotiations with Washington had even taken place. He alleged that the latest Trump announcement was a "fake news used to manipulate financial and oil markets".
The jury is yet to be out on whether these suspiciously timed trades had any insider trading angle attached to them. But the sheer volume of it might qualify it for mass market manipulation, if there is any truth to the matter. Similar timed trades have preceded other major US policy announcements in recent months, including a Polymarket bet placed just before Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro was arrested.