10 ms·

> We don’t know who placed the trades. We don’t know what they knew. Actually, “we”, collectively, do know, because the SEC maintains an “XKEYSCORE for equitie

> We don’t know who placed the trades. We don’t know what they knew. Actually, “we”, collectively, do know, because the SEC maintains an “XKEYSCORE for equities” called CAT. If there was interest, the government could know exactly who placed these trades. But the call (options) are coming from inside the house.

more_corn 1y ago
Are you suggesting that the SEC won’t investigate this obvious insider trading because it came from someone in his inner circle? Big if true.
sebasv_ 1y ago
What would determine whether the SEC will investigate for insider trading? I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure.
- klipt 1y ago
  SEC is a federal agency so falls under the Executive which is controlled by Trump. Trump will fire any SEC employee who investigates the "wrong" people and install a loyalist in their place.
  - EasyMark 1y ago
    This is the truth, they have been recently divesting of anyone who wants to prosecute for white collar crime. The next four years will see at least one trillionaire because he/she will be able to game the system without any barriers because the sheriff is also the criminal.
- pulisse 1y ago
  > I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure. In the past month the SEC has stopped most enforcement actions involving crypto.
- solardev 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - irrational 1y ago
    Except the military.
    - amszmidt 1y ago
      Alas, the military answers to the president. Article II Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, "the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Not that the constitution matters ...
      - scotty79 1y ago
        Military answers to whomever it thinks it's best to get paid. If relationship between government and the people fails so hard that collection of taxes to fund the military is threatened then the military sides either with the people and deposes the government or with the government and suppresses the unrest.
        wuschel 1y ago
        Wise words! This process was exactly what could be observed in Portugal in the beginning of the 2010 decade. The opposition was not able to buy the military, and the government was returned to power by by promising raise in payment.
        bialpio 1y ago
        Do you have more links handy about the situation in Portugal? I'd love to read more about that.
        Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
        "the military" isn't a single entity. If things really got bad I suspect there would breaks all over the place as various groups (across all ranks) decide to either follow or refuse orders coming down. It would be chaos, the fact that things could get so bad that we're even talking about it is already a very bad sign.
- hurtuvac78 1y ago
  The president nominates the SEC chair, and can fire him. This explains how, written just before Trump assumed power: While he can't force Gensler to step down as a commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he can name a new interim SEC chair as soon as he's inaugurated on Jan. 20. He can also nominate a new commissioner to the Senate, which has to confirm the pick. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/07/heres-how-quickly-gary-gensler-could-lose-his-sec-chair-gig-under-trump https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/07/heres-how-quickly... And Gensler resigned as Chair as soon as Jan 20th: https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-29 https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-29
- daedrdev 1y ago
  In this administration they will be fired for cases Trump doesnt like. Who would protect their independence, Congress? The house members will not oppose any trump policy unless the US is in a depression due to his action
  - vkou 1y ago
    At this point, it's not clear that they would oppose him dropping a nuclear bomb on Ohio.
    - ourmandave 1y ago
      Well, if there was a hurricane headed to Toledo, it could be justified.[0] All depends on if it's in the storm path drawn by the Presidential Sharpie. [0] First Trump threatened to nuke hurricanes. Now he’s waging war on weather forecasters https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/trump-waging-war-weather-forecasters-nuke-hurricanes https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/trump-...
- tdb7893 1y ago
  Who would be doing the shielding? The current US government has been operating under the assumption of an incredibly expansive executive power, even over "independent" agencies. I'm not a legal expert at all but so far the most useful mental model has been to assume absolutely no one is shielded from executive power (including organizations and people entirely outside the federal government) unless the courts have delivered a final ruling on it.
  - mjd 1y ago
    How would a final court ruling shield someone from executive power? The court relies on the executive to enforce its decisions. They can find a person in contempt, and order fines or jail time until that person complies, but I believe the orders are then enforced by U.S. Marshals, who are executive appointees. This is a serious question. What have I missed?
    - paulryanrogers 1y ago
      If the Marshalls neglect their oath to the Constitution (whether ordered to by superiors or not) then the court can deputize others to carry out court orders. IIUC correctly that's usually the police.
      - freeone3000 1y ago
        I cannot overstate this enough: The police cannot be counted on to protect citizens against governmental overreach.
    - tdb7893 1y ago
      I think there's no hard power stopping them but in general they've been reluctant to openly defy courts (they have defied lower courts some while claiming they haven't). I think at least adhering to some pretense of American democracy has so far been important to this administration and if they abandon that pretense carelessly they run a real risk of losing necessary support (popular support, Congressional support, but also support of executive branch institutions). Also, it's not that I think they won't defy courts but they'll be very careful in doing it (well, at least as careful as this administration can be) so it's still a reasonable base assumption that court orders protect you since while it's not the ironclad protection it was it still gives you some protection for now. Though that "for now" is obviously rather ominous.
- dboreham 1y ago
  When the criminals get root access...
- rco8786 1y ago
  Why would you expect that?
- hattmall 1y ago
  Questionable if there is anything to investigate, definitionally you can't inside trade an index fund.
  - Frost1x 1y ago
    If you’re POTUS or closely related to POTUS with access to sweeping information about erratic tariff policies that actual do shift entire markets index funds index against, why couldn’t you? In general I think you’re correct because the “inside” information is typically not as broad or powerful. But I don’t think we live in general times. If POTUS gave me personally a heads up about such adjustments on tariffs, after watching indexes tumble after announcing them, and knowing the opposite direction, I would dump almost everything I had access to in such stocks largely effected by reevaluation from tariffs. Knowing major policy shifts before they happen from one of the powerful governments in the world is useful information, especially when the policies are being set by a handful of people who can limit access to knowledge escaping even more than regularly so markets don’t adjust from larger sets of insider information. Now is it really considered “insider” trading in this case? Probably not, and this administration can get away with anything it seems.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    That's the whole point. It CANNOT have been someone inside all 500 companies. It wouldn't make much sense because those companies did not do anything at the time. It was president Trump's tweet that moved the market. So it can only have been someone that new of Trump's announcement hours before he made that announcement.
- jibal 1y ago
  "I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure." Such an expectation was rational prior to 2025-01-20. Since then it's been completely counterfactual.
richardw 1y ago
You keep the receipts for about 4 years and you speak up one minute after the government changes. You get it done long before the following election.
- eru 1y ago
  With a bit of luck, you only have to wait for 2 years, when Congress changes hands.
  - labster 1y ago
    And with a lot more luck, the election results will be recognized as legitimate.
  - mattkevan 1y ago
    Bold to assume there are going to be elections. All it needs is some kind of emergency, genuine, imaginary or self-inflicted, and ‘Oh no, we can’t possibly hold elections until our time of national crisis is over.’
    - koolba 1y ago
      You mean like Ukraine?
      - multjoy 1y ago
        They’re literally fighting for their lives. Nobody wants elections in wartime, not least because polling stations become targets. You need to lay off the MAGA talking points.
        koolba 1y ago
        [flagged]
        thatcat 1y ago
        The conscripted might disagree and desire a leader who will pursue a peaceful solution, this conclusion is supported by the high number of deserters.
mullingitover 1y ago
No economic system is functional without a bunch of compromises, and capitalism needs strong regulations as a check to keep it from turning absolutely rotten. We're witnessing the removal of all of the guardrails, traffic signals, road maintenance crews. The highway patrols have been replaced by organized teams of highwaymen. It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.
- eru 1y ago
  It depends on what you mean by 'strong regulations'. Regulations that are on the books should be enforced as written. In that sense I agree. But it doesn't mean that we actually necessarily need all the regulations that are on the books to stay on the books. Eg, it would be perfectly fine to make insider trading legal by law. (And in fact, the definition of insider trading in the US differs a lot from the one used in France. So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.) I agree that random enforcement of some regulations but not others depending on the whim of the executive is less than ideal.
  - pineaux 1y ago
    You could make insider trading legal by law, but that would destroy a lot of the stock market because all non-insiders would basically set themselves up to be ripped off.
    - eru 1y ago
      No, it wouldn't destroy the stock market. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 for an explanation. Summary: people are already allowed to trade on inside information (in the US), if the person who officially owns the information is ok with that. The prohibition on insider trading in the US is about fiduciary duty to the owner of the information, not about protecting the general public.
      - navane 1y ago
jwilber 1y ago
Maybe it's a friend of Trump. Maybe it's a friend of Pelosi. Might even be a member of Congress! "Rules for thee not for me."
- paulgb 1y ago
  Is congress actually apprised of the tariff developments, or do they learn about them from twitter like the rest of us?
  - dashundchen 1y ago
    The horrid congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene happened to disclose many trades that were clearly front running the tarrif announcements. There is definitely an insiders club communicating these things in advance. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-stocks-trump-tariffs/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-stocks-t...
    - EasyMark 1y ago
      I don't think you can say "definitely" but you can definitely say "high possibility of", the president has signaled that the DOJ is okay with white collar crime by his friends and family by firing lots of long term bureaucrats and lawyers known for fighting said white collar crime. He wants to clean house of honest people and put in only sycophants and fellow grifters.
- dtquad 1y ago
  How would a "friend of Pelosi" know when Trump would post his "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" and "90 days pause" posts?
  - gruez 1y ago
    That's arguably the opposite of insider trading though? I'm now sure how doing insider trading but in secret is somehow better.
  - 1y ago
cft 1y ago
from the house of representatives or the white house? and how do you know?
maxbond 1y ago
Is this really SEC's bailiwick? Aren't options commodities (and so regulated by CFTC)?
- shawabawa3 1y ago
  Options are not commodities They're a derivative, so options of equities are equities and I guess options of commodities are commodities
- manuelfcreis 1y ago
  Neither! Options are derivatives, which are also regulated by the CFTC
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  No, options are derivatives and are, in the US, generally regulated by the body regulating the underlying asset; stock/index options are regulated by the SEC, commodities options by the CFTC.
rvba 1y ago
The prosecutors dont need any spy tool to check who did the trade (at least officially). They can simply ask to receive the records / logs.
testing22321 1y ago
That same day after market close Trump directly told us it was insider trading AND who dun it. He literally bragged that his friend made 2.5 billion and the other 900 million that day. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1jvyryz/trump_after_market_close_yesterday_he_made_25/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1jvyryz/tru...
- dist-epoch 1y ago
  There is a difference between making 2.5 billion because you owned stocks and the market went up and making 2.5 billion because you bought just before the market went up and then you sold.
  - throwaway3b03 1y ago
    It's unlikely you can make 2.5 billion with a single unleveraged trade. The market went up by what, 6-7% that day? Nobody bets his whole net worth on this to make a profit like that. So I think leverage was definitely involved, which just shows that insider info was definitely there.
- bhouston 1y ago
  You are inferring too much from that comment. I think those people just had large stock holdings in general and were he market went up a lot that day.
  - testing22321 1y ago
    The market briefly went up 7% that day. To make 2.5 billion just from holdings they must have had stock holdings of 35 billion. Then the next day they lost a lot more than that. I doubt it very, very much.
rschneid 1y ago
The consolidate audit trail regularly has millions of errors within a day... It's far from complete data; here's their latest report card: https://catnmsplan.com/sites/default/files/2025-04/04.01.25-Monthly-CAT-Update.pdf https://catnmsplan.com/sites/default/files/2025-04/04.01.25-... Also, CAT is run by CATNMS, LLC which was created in response to an SEC rule 613, however it is operated by the same consortium of SROs that it purports to provide oversight on... All these layers of responsibility diffusion and a notable absence of penalties for failing to meet rule 613 guidelines mean that rule is little more than for show.

more_corn 1y ago

Are you suggesting that the SEC won’t investigate this obvious insider trading because it came from someone in his inner circle? Big if true.

sebasv_ 1y ago

What would determine whether the SEC will investigate for insider trading? I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure.

klipt 1y ago
SEC is a federal agency so falls under the Executive which is controlled by Trump. Trump will fire any SEC employee who investigates the "wrong" people and install a loyalist in their place.
- EasyMark 1y ago
  This is the truth, they have been recently divesting of anyone who wants to prosecute for white collar crime. The next four years will see at least one trillionaire because he/she will be able to game the system without any barriers because the sheriff is also the criminal.
pulisse 1y ago
> I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure. In the past month the SEC has stopped most enforcement actions involving crypto.
solardev 1y ago
[flagged]
- irrational 1y ago
  Except the military.
  - amszmidt 1y ago
    Alas, the military answers to the president. Article II Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, "the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Not that the constitution matters ...
    - scotty79 1y ago
      Military answers to whomever it thinks it's best to get paid. If relationship between government and the people fails so hard that collection of taxes to fund the military is threatened then the military sides either with the people and deposes the government or with the government and suppresses the unrest.
      - wuschel 1y ago
        Wise words! This process was exactly what could be observed in Portugal in the beginning of the 2010 decade. The opposition was not able to buy the military, and the government was returned to power by by promising raise in payment.
        bialpio 1y ago
        Do you have more links handy about the situation in Portugal? I'd love to read more about that.
      - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
        "the military" isn't a single entity. If things really got bad I suspect there would breaks all over the place as various groups (across all ranks) decide to either follow or refuse orders coming down. It would be chaos, the fact that things could get so bad that we're even talking about it is already a very bad sign.
hurtuvac78 1y ago
The president nominates the SEC chair, and can fire him. This explains how, written just before Trump assumed power: While he can't force Gensler to step down as a commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he can name a new interim SEC chair as soon as he's inaugurated on Jan. 20. He can also nominate a new commissioner to the Senate, which has to confirm the pick. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/07/heres-how-quickly-gary-gensler-could-lose-his-sec-chair-gig-under-trump https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/07/heres-how-quickly... And Gensler resigned as Chair as soon as Jan 20th: https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-29 https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-29
daedrdev 1y ago
In this administration they will be fired for cases Trump doesnt like. Who would protect their independence, Congress? The house members will not oppose any trump policy unless the US is in a depression due to his action
- vkou 1y ago
  At this point, it's not clear that they would oppose him dropping a nuclear bomb on Ohio.
  - ourmandave 1y ago
    Well, if there was a hurricane headed to Toledo, it could be justified.[0] All depends on if it's in the storm path drawn by the Presidential Sharpie. [0] First Trump threatened to nuke hurricanes. Now he’s waging war on weather forecasters https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/trump-waging-war-weather-forecasters-nuke-hurricanes https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/trump-...
tdb7893 1y ago
Who would be doing the shielding? The current US government has been operating under the assumption of an incredibly expansive executive power, even over "independent" agencies. I'm not a legal expert at all but so far the most useful mental model has been to assume absolutely no one is shielded from executive power (including organizations and people entirely outside the federal government) unless the courts have delivered a final ruling on it.
- mjd 1y ago
  How would a final court ruling shield someone from executive power? The court relies on the executive to enforce its decisions. They can find a person in contempt, and order fines or jail time until that person complies, but I believe the orders are then enforced by U.S. Marshals, who are executive appointees. This is a serious question. What have I missed?
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago
    If the Marshalls neglect their oath to the Constitution (whether ordered to by superiors or not) then the court can deputize others to carry out court orders. IIUC correctly that's usually the police.
    - freeone3000 1y ago
      I cannot overstate this enough: The police cannot be counted on to protect citizens against governmental overreach.
  - tdb7893 1y ago
    I think there's no hard power stopping them but in general they've been reluctant to openly defy courts (they have defied lower courts some while claiming they haven't). I think at least adhering to some pretense of American democracy has so far been important to this administration and if they abandon that pretense carelessly they run a real risk of losing necessary support (popular support, Congressional support, but also support of executive branch institutions). Also, it's not that I think they won't defy courts but they'll be very careful in doing it (well, at least as careful as this administration can be) so it's still a reasonable base assumption that court orders protect you since while it's not the ironclad protection it was it still gives you some protection for now. Though that "for now" is obviously rather ominous.
dboreham 1y ago
When the criminals get root access...
rco8786 1y ago
Why would you expect that?
hattmall 1y ago
Questionable if there is anything to investigate, definitionally you can't inside trade an index fund.
- Frost1x 1y ago
  If you’re POTUS or closely related to POTUS with access to sweeping information about erratic tariff policies that actual do shift entire markets index funds index against, why couldn’t you? In general I think you’re correct because the “inside” information is typically not as broad or powerful. But I don’t think we live in general times. If POTUS gave me personally a heads up about such adjustments on tariffs, after watching indexes tumble after announcing them, and knowing the opposite direction, I would dump almost everything I had access to in such stocks largely effected by reevaluation from tariffs. Knowing major policy shifts before they happen from one of the powerful governments in the world is useful information, especially when the policies are being set by a handful of people who can limit access to knowledge escaping even more than regularly so markets don’t adjust from larger sets of insider information. Now is it really considered “insider” trading in this case? Probably not, and this administration can get away with anything it seems.
- spwa4 1y ago
  That's the whole point. It CANNOT have been someone inside all 500 companies. It wouldn't make much sense because those companies did not do anything at the time. It was president Trump's tweet that moved the market. So it can only have been someone that new of Trump's announcement hours before he made that announcement.
jibal 1y ago
"I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure." Such an expectation was rational prior to 2025-01-20. Since then it's been completely counterfactual.

richardw 1y ago

You keep the receipts for about 4 years and you speak up one minute after the government changes. You get it done long before the following election.

eru 1y ago
With a bit of luck, you only have to wait for 2 years, when Congress changes hands.
- labster 1y ago
  And with a lot more luck, the election results will be recognized as legitimate.
- mattkevan 1y ago
  Bold to assume there are going to be elections. All it needs is some kind of emergency, genuine, imaginary or self-inflicted, and ‘Oh no, we can’t possibly hold elections until our time of national crisis is over.’
  - koolba 1y ago
    You mean like Ukraine?
    - multjoy 1y ago
      They’re literally fighting for their lives. Nobody wants elections in wartime, not least because polling stations become targets. You need to lay off the MAGA talking points.
      - koolba 1y ago
        [flagged]
      - thatcat 1y ago
        The conscripted might disagree and desire a leader who will pursue a peaceful solution, this conclusion is supported by the high number of deserters.

mullingitover 1y ago

No economic system is functional without a bunch of compromises, and capitalism needs strong regulations as a check to keep it from turning absolutely rotten. We're witnessing the removal of all of the guardrails, traffic signals, road maintenance crews. The highway patrols have been replaced by organized teams of highwaymen. It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

eru 1y ago
It depends on what you mean by 'strong regulations'. Regulations that are on the books should be enforced as written. In that sense I agree. But it doesn't mean that we actually necessarily need all the regulations that are on the books to stay on the books. Eg, it would be perfectly fine to make insider trading legal by law. (And in fact, the definition of insider trading in the US differs a lot from the one used in France. So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.) I agree that random enforcement of some regulations but not others depending on the whim of the executive is less than ideal.
- pineaux 1y ago
  You could make insider trading legal by law, but that would destroy a lot of the stock market because all non-insiders would basically set themselves up to be ripped off.
  - eru 1y ago
    No, it wouldn't destroy the stock market. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 for an explanation. Summary: people are already allowed to trade on inside information (in the US), if the person who officially owns the information is ok with that. The prohibition on insider trading in the US is about fiduciary duty to the owner of the information, not about protecting the general public.
    - navane 1y ago

jwilber 1y ago

Maybe it's a friend of Trump. Maybe it's a friend of Pelosi. Might even be a member of Congress! "Rules for thee not for me."

paulgb 1y ago
Is congress actually apprised of the tariff developments, or do they learn about them from twitter like the rest of us?
- dashundchen 1y ago
  The horrid congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene happened to disclose many trades that were clearly front running the tarrif announcements. There is definitely an insiders club communicating these things in advance. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-stocks-trump-tariffs/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-stocks-t...
  - EasyMark 1y ago
    I don't think you can say "definitely" but you can definitely say "high possibility of", the president has signaled that the DOJ is okay with white collar crime by his friends and family by firing lots of long term bureaucrats and lawyers known for fighting said white collar crime. He wants to clean house of honest people and put in only sycophants and fellow grifters.
dtquad 1y ago
How would a "friend of Pelosi" know when Trump would post his "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" and "90 days pause" posts?
- gruez 1y ago
  That's arguably the opposite of insider trading though? I'm now sure how doing insider trading but in secret is somehow better.
- 1y ago

cft 1y ago

from the house of representatives or the white house? and how do you know?

maxbond 1y ago

Is this really SEC's bailiwick? Aren't options commodities (and so regulated by CFTC)?

shawabawa3 1y ago
Options are not commodities They're a derivative, so options of equities are equities and I guess options of commodities are commodities
manuelfcreis 1y ago
Neither! Options are derivatives, which are also regulated by the CFTC
dragonwriter 1y ago
No, options are derivatives and are, in the US, generally regulated by the body regulating the underlying asset; stock/index options are regulated by the SEC, commodities options by the CFTC.

rvba 1y ago

The prosecutors dont need any spy tool to check who did the trade (at least officially). They can simply ask to receive the records / logs.

testing22321 1y ago

That same day after market close Trump directly told us it was insider trading AND who dun it. He literally bragged that his friend made 2.5 billion and the other 900 million that day. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1jvyryz/trump_after_market_close_yesterday_he_made_25/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1jvyryz/tru...

dist-epoch 1y ago
There is a difference between making 2.5 billion because you owned stocks and the market went up and making 2.5 billion because you bought just before the market went up and then you sold.
- throwaway3b03 1y ago
  It's unlikely you can make 2.5 billion with a single unleveraged trade. The market went up by what, 6-7% that day? Nobody bets his whole net worth on this to make a profit like that. So I think leverage was definitely involved, which just shows that insider info was definitely there.
bhouston 1y ago
You are inferring too much from that comment. I think those people just had large stock holdings in general and were he market went up a lot that day.
- testing22321 1y ago
  The market briefly went up 7% that day. To make 2.5 billion just from holdings they must have had stock holdings of 35 billion. Then the next day they lost a lot more than that. I doubt it very, very much.

rschneid 1y ago

The consolidate audit trail regularly has millions of errors within a day... It's far from complete data; here's their latest report card: https://catnmsplan.com/sites/default/files/2025-04/04.01.25-Monthly-CAT-Update.pdf https://catnmsplan.com/sites/default/files/2025-04/04.01.25-... Also, CAT is run by CATNMS, LLC which was created in response to an SEC rule 613, however it is operated by the same consortium of SROs that it purports to provide oversight on... All these layers of responsibility diffusion and a notable absence of penalties for failing to meet rule 613 guidelines mean that rule is little more than for show.