Before Trump Announced Ceasefire, $950 Million Crude Oil Short Position Entered with Precision, U.S. Lawmaker Urges Probe Into ‘Suspicious’ Trade

BlockBeats News, April 9th - According to Reuters, just hours before US President Trump announced a ceasefire agreement with Iran, the oil market experienced an extremely rare abnormal trading event. At 19:45 Greenwich Mean Time on Tuesday, investors suddenly sold a total of 8600 lots of Brent and WTI futures during the post-settlement inactive period, with a total position value of approximately $950 million.

Less than three hours later, Trump formally announced a two-week US-Iran ceasefire. Impacted by this news, crude oil futures plummeted by approximately 15% at the Wednesday open, breaking below the $100 mark. This meant that the "well-timed ambush" short position reaped huge profits within hours. This was not an isolated event. On March 23rd, 15 minutes before Trump announced a delay in striking Iranian energy facilities, the market saw a $500 million abnormal short position, followed by a 15% drop in oil prices. Data shows that since the escalation of US-Iran tensions, daily crude oil trading volume has doubled to the million-lot level.

Congressman Ritchie Torres has officially written to the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) and CFTC (US Commodity Futures Trading Commission), urging an investigation into these "suspicious" trades. Torres pointed out that these trades were highly directional in terms of speed, scale, and structure, necessitating a review of the related accounts. Currently, CME and SEC have declined to comment, while CFTC previously stated that they were "monitoring" the market anomalies. (Jinse)