Summary
Donald Trump is facing insider trading accusations after urging followers to buy stocks hours before pausing global tariffs—sending markets soaring.
His Truth Social post, signed “DJT” (also the ticker for his media company), preceded a surprise 90-day tariff pause on all countries except China.
The S&P 500 jumped 9%, Nasdaq 12%, and Trump Media stock surged 22%.
Lawmakers including Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are demanding investigations and disclosures, calling the timing suspicious. Critics say the sudden policy reversal created a profit window for insiders with prior knowledge.
The blue bars at the bottom are the volume of trades and the lines at the top are the average price per share. You can see that right before the price shot up there was a sharp increase in volume indicating that a group of people knew and bought large quantities before the rest of the world knew.
How does the timing fit with his message on Truth social?
9:30am He posted, “Be cool! Everything is going to work out well.”.
9:37am He posted, “Now is a great time to buy!”.
1:02pm Insiders suddenly invest billions of dollars into US stocks.
1:15pm He announced the updated tariff plan.
It seems likely that there was some group chat giving more details about the plan before the official announcement. Today he bragged that some businessmen he knows made $900 million yesterday.
Ok so the message on Truth came a few hours before, I guess they’ll use that as a defense if anything ever happens…