BBC reveals pattern of anomalous deals leading up to Trump's key announcements

The BBC's analysis showed a consistent pattern according to which, on the eve of Trump's key statements on the war with Iran and other topics, financial markets recorded abnormal spikes in trading activity literally minutes or hours before publication. On March 9, for example, bets on oil prices rose sharply 47 minutes before a CBS journalist tweeted (X) an interview with the president, who said the war was “basically over.” After the publication, the price of a barrel fell by 25%, and traders who managed to open short positions earned millions of dollars.

A similar picture was repeated on March 23. 16 minutes before Trump's Truth Social post about a "full and final settlement" with Iran, oil trading volumes surged, and after the publication, prices fell another 11%. In April 2025, a similar pattern preceded the announcement of a 90-day tariff pause: the S&P 500 index rose 9.5% and some traders bet more than $2 million on the market's rise as it fell for seven days in a row. Their potential profit was about $20 million.

According to the BBC, bets on prediction platforms Polymarket and Kalshi also raise suspicions. In December 2025, the anonymous account Burdensome-Mix invested $32,500 in the hope that Nicolas Maduro would lose power by the end of January - and when US special forces captured the Venezuelan president on January 3, he won $436,000. Shortly after this, the account changed its name and no longer placed bets. In February, six accounts created from scratch bet on a US strike on Iran by February 28 and shared $1.2 million in winnings.

As the publication notes, a number of analysts see signs of illegal insider trading in these transactions. Paul Houdin, a professor of financial law at ESSEC Business School, told the BBC that financial regulators tend to hesitate to prosecute without being able to establish the source of the leak, which means that even if there is an obvious connection between transactions and classified information, the chances of an actual criminal case are slim. Other experts admit that some traders have simply learned to more accurately predict the president’s behavior.

The White House last month sent out an internal warning to employees against using proprietary information to trade in prediction markets. The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., is an investor in Polymarket and serves on its advisory board, and also serves as a strategic advisor to Kalshi. Earlier, the US regulator began an investigation into suspicious oil transactions made before Trump's key statements on Iran.