REPS LIEU AND RICE CALL FOR INVESTIGATION INTO SUSPICIOUS FUTURES TRADING AROUND GEOPOLITICAL EVENTS, TRUMP STATEMENTS

Authored by lieu.house.gov and submitted by abenyishay

WASHINGTON – Today, former prosecutors Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congresswoman Kathleen Rice (D-NY) sent letters to the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission calling for an investigation following a Vanity Fair report of the suspicious timing around sales of e-mini futures contracts immediately prior to major geopolitical events or statements from Donald Trump. The trades may be coincidental, but their timing and scale raise serious suspicions about whether the traders received material nonpublic information that would affect the S&P and how they received such information.

In the letters, the Members write:

We write to urge you to investigate potentially unlawful behavior related to the trading of electronically traded futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the last several months.

On October 16, Vanity Fair reported on numerous instances in which individuals or groups of individuals made millions, and in some cases billions, of dollars in profits by trading large numbers of Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P) e-mini futures contracts immediately prior to major geopolitical events. In each of these instances, the e-mini contracts were traded within days, and often within hours, of the S&P rising or falling sharply. The trades preceded such events as the Saudi Aramco attack as well as announcements related to progress in talks between the United States and China over the trade war and the withdrawal of the extradition bill in Hong Kong. In one case occurring in August, the trader or traders made $1.5 billion when the S&P rose after President Trump lied about phone calls taking place between United States and Chinese officials.

While the aforementioned trades may be purely coincidental, their timing and scale raise serious suspicions about whether the traders received material nonpublic information that would affect the S&P and how they received such information. We urge you to swiftly investigate whether trading on insider information or any other fraudulent behavior occurred in relation to these trades.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to your response.

WinstonQueue on October 18th, 2019 at 16:39 UTC »

This is huge. I think a good portion of Americans thought there was something highly suspicious about Trump's constant announcements that hurt and then help the markets. We know he pulled this crap before:

One of Trump’s few profit-making ventures in the late 1980s was his version of the age-old Wall Street boiler-room scam known as “pump and dump.” Repeatedly, Trump would announce that he was seeking to acquire majority control of a major company like United Airlines and then, when the stock jumped, he’d sell his relatively small holdings at a major profit. Trump pulled off the same scheme with publicly touted investments in Hilton Hotels, Gillette, and Federated Department Stores.

But stock analysts, with money on the line, noticed that Trump never followed through after his initial braggadocio about a takeover attempt. In late 1989, a purported Trumpian raid on American Airlines inspired mostly yawns and giggles. According to the Times’ analysis, Trump appeared to have lost more than $30 million when American Airlines stock dropped sharply.

Damerman on October 18th, 2019 at 15:46 UTC »

This needs to be investigated. As i said in another thread, this was obvious to me ever since he continued to make tradewar/tarrif remarks even after seeing its devastating effect on the market. Trump is a crook who knows that his words as president would move the markets. He is stupid enough to think he can get away with that market manipulation.

Maxwell_RN on October 18th, 2019 at 15:38 UTC »

I wonder if any Republicans will get caught up in this cheating?