{"id":408285,"date":"2026-03-28T10:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/408285\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T10:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:02:11","slug":"pattern-of-well-timed-bets-raises-questions-beyond-iran-episode-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/408285\/","title":{"rendered":"Pattern of well-timed bets raises questions beyond Iran episode \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Minutes before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donald-trump\/\">Donald Trump<\/a> signalled a pause last Monday on strikes against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/iran\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/iran\/\">Iranian<\/a> power plants, Wall Street had already moved ahead of him, by more than half a billion dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">About 15 minutes before Trump\u2019s post on Truth Social, roughly $580 million (\u20ac503 million) in oil futures were traded in a sudden spike of volume, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sp500\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sp500\/\">S&amp;P 500<\/a> futures also jumped sharply, prompting speculation about unusually well-timed bets. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coincidence, or a tip from someone in the know? That remains to be seen, but the episode is not an isolated one. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Prediction markets have seen very profitable bets on an imminent US strike on Iran just before the war began; on the capture of Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro immediately before the event; and on long-shot picks for top US cabinet roles hours before announcements. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There have also been reports of suspicious call-option trading preceding last April\u2019s White House tariff reversal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Before drawing firm conclusions here, two points are worth noting. First, insider policy information has probably always seeped into market prices on occasion, something observed not just today but across past US administrations. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Second, the issue is not confined to politics or markets: bets on everything from Google\u2019s search rankings to Taylor Swift announcements indicate that well-timed wagering is a modern, widespread challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Still, today\u2019s political environment looks especially concerning. The Trump Action Tracker, run by University College London\u2019s Prof Christina Pagel, lists 2,816 actions under the second Trump administration, 188 of them classified as \u201ccorruption and enrichment\u201d, reflecting a broader weakening of ethical guardrails and erosion of oversight mechanisms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Even if no rules were breached this time, the broader context of eroded oversight and norms makes such episodes harder to dismiss as mere coincidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minutes before Donald Trump signalled a pause last Monday on strikes against Iranian power plants, Wall Street had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,356,18,19,17,45036,102080],"class_list":{"0":"post-408285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","14":"tag-sp500"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116306232073965434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}