Trump faces ‘insider trading’ accusations

Undoubtedly, every time Donald Trump has activated, reversed, or paused trade tariffs, stock markets worldwide have reacted in either direction. However, whether the US president has done it purposely or engaged in insider trading is a whole different story.

On Wednesday, before making a dramatic reversal on his trade war that led to significant rises in stock markets around the world, he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” He tailed his post with initial DJT, which is his social media’s company ticker. Those stocks rose 22 per cent.

Trump’s Truth Social post arguably compelling people to purchase stocks and traders to long stock positions has raised questions of whether his tariff of and on strategy is aimed at purposely manipulating the market.

Today, a group of Senate Democrats asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the president and others, accusing them of potential violations, including insider trading and market manipulation.

“Specifically, we ask the SEC to determine whether President Trump, any members of his cabinet, or other donor, insiders, and Administration officials engaged in insider trading, market manipulation, or other securities laws violations on April 9, 2025, when President Trump announced that it was a “GREAT TIME TO BUY” into the stock market,” the Democrats said their letter to the SEC.

Erratic and reckless tariffs

In the three-page letter, signed by Elizabeth Warren, Charles Schumer, Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego, and Ron Wyden, they also accuse Trump of announcing “a series of erratic, reckless tariffs, leading to significant market turmoil.”

They noted that as a direct result of those actions, the US financial markets lost over $5 trillion in two days. According to Siblis Research, the US stock had by April 4, lost $10 trillion in total market value as its market cap stood at $52 trillion. According to Companies Market Cap, the total market cap is currently $54.7 trillion.

Financial data confirms that minutes before Trump’s social media post pausing tariffs sent the US stock market rallying, several unidentified options traders placed bets worth millions of dollars that the market would recover. Their bets paid off handsomely.

“There’s no way to know if that buyer at that moment just had lucky timing (or not),” Henry Schwartz, vice president, market intelligence at Cboe Global Markets, told Reuters.

In a video posted on X, Trump is heard talking about the massive profits people in his Oval Office had made. According to an April 4 New York Magazine X post, Trump had posted a video on Truth Social that is no longer available where he says he’s “purposely crashing the market.”

Hakeem Jeffries, the US House of Representatives Democratic Leader, told reporters in Congress that his party “will aggressively be demanding answers and transparency, particularly as it relates to stock purchase decisions that may have occurred over the last few days.”

‘No way’ Trump is guilty

Massive daily market swings have boosted options volume to a record high – some 85 million contracts changed hands on Wednesday – making it extra hard to sift through the volume for suspicious trades, Reuters noted.

“Bottom line, volumes and volatility were huge, so I’m unable to determine whether any of the many well-timed purchases were fortuitous normal trades or something nefarious,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.

‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort told Sky News there’s “no way” Donald Trump is guilty of insider trading or market manipulation.

“If he hadn’t said anything and told five of his best friends, ‘I’m gonna ease this tariff situation – you should be buying’, that would be illegal,” said Belfort, who spent years behind bars, convicted of insider trading.