Sixteen minutes

On 23 March 2026, in the sixteen minutes between 6:49 a.m. and 7:05 a.m. New York time, trading volume in oil and stock futures spiked with no obvious catalyst, and Donald Trump then posted that strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would pause. Those minutes have drawn a Senate letter, a House member’s regulator request, and a CFTC probe. In the CFTC’s press releases to 9 October 2026, THE RORT found no finding that anyone traded on inside information over them.

The sixteen minutes are one entry in a longer, dated record: accounts in the president’s name buying oil, gas and defence stocks through the war his administration was fighting; prediction markets that took bets on the war’s timing before it began; and the one person the CFTC had penalised, by 5 October 2026, for trading on nonpublic government information, a former White House teleprompter operator who bet on Trump’s own speeches. This article sets out the dates and sizes, with every denial printed beside the allegation it answers. The prediction market that took those bets is the subject of the next article; what the same record shows in Australia is the subject of the three that follow it.

01The ballroom

On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel struck Iran in an operation code-named Operation Epic Fury. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed. ¹ The Pentagon records the operation as launched at 1:15 a.m. on 28 February, a Saturday; this article dates the war from those strikes. ³⁸ Trump followed the strikes from a ballroom, not a briefing room, hosting a children’s charity gala at Mar-a-Lago in formal attire before moving behind heavy curtains into a makeshift situation room set up with classified phone lines and monitors. He announced the operation from Mar-a-Lago’s press room in the early hours of Saturday, then went on to a Republican fundraiser, while Vice President Vance watched from the White House Situation Room. ¹

The fundraiser held as the strikes began was priced at US$1 million per person, attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff. Within twenty-four hours, three US service members had been killed and five seriously wounded, according to military officials. ²

Update, 7 October 2026. Some reports give 27 February 2026, the Friday night on which Trump hosted the Mar-a-Lago gala, as the start of the war. This article dates it from the strikes, which the Pentagon records as launched at 1:15 a.m. on Saturday 28 February 2026 ³⁸; the first paragraph now says so, and every date in the article and its image is 28 February.

02The bettors

Prediction markets moved before the missiles did. US$529 million was traded on Polymarket contracts tied to the timing of the strikes, a Bloomberg figure reported by TechCrunch. Analytics firm Bubblemaps identified six newly created accounts that together profited about US$1 million betting the strike would happen by 28 February. Bubblemaps chief executive Nicolas Vaiman said information “involving war or conflict” combined with “Polymarket’s anonymity, can create incentives for informed participants to act early.” ⁴

AFP reported a different figure for the same six accounts: US$1.2 million staked in the hours before the bombing began, comparable to more than US$400,000 wagered on Polymarket in January on Nicolas Maduro’s ouster, hours before US forces seized him. The profit and stake figures describe the same accounts measured two ways; neither is a finding, and no charge has followed either one. ⁵

03The president’s accounts

Accounts in Donald Trump’s own name traded through the same months, buying gold, treasuries and emerging-market ETFs through early March, then energy and defence stocks by 23 March, before moving into cash the following week. Across the war’s first three months the account made about 3,642 trades, US$220 million to 750 million of volume. ⁶

A Trump Organization spokesperson said third-party institutions held “sole and exclusive authority” over the decisions through “automated investment processes”. ⁶

A separate CNBC reconstruction adds detail to the same dates: eight oil and gas companies bought on 2 March, and sixteen energy purchases on 23 March, the same day Trump postponed threatened strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure before the market opened, and an Exxon sale on 7 April hours before a ceasefire announcement. CNBC estimates the president’s nine largest oil and gas holdings gained US$1.5 million to 4.4 million between the eve of the war and 31 August. ⁷

CBS News puts first-quarter trading at about 3,600 trades worth US$212 million to 695 million, and cites the Joint Economic Committee Democrats for a rise in the disclosed value of the oil and gas holdings through mid-August. White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the portfolio is independently managed with no family input; others called the pattern tax-loss harvesting, or raised the concern of profiting from instability the president had a role in creating. ⁸

Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian signed remotely a fourteen-point framework memorandum on 17 June to end the war. ⁹ An OGE filing dated 12 August records more than 1,000 trades in June, including Lockheed Martin bought, sold and bought again on 15, 16 and 23 June; the memorandum falls between those trades, and no inference beyond that is drawn. Davis Ingle said there were “no conflicts of interest” and that the assets sit in a trust managed by the president’s children. ¹⁰

04Sixteen minutes

Every trading time here is New York time. At around 6:50 a.m. on Monday 23 March 2026, S&P 500 e-mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume, and a similar pattern was observed in oil markets ¹¹. CNBC noted the absence of an obvious catalyst. Bloomberg puts the start of the oil selling at 6:49 a.m. ¹². About sixteen minutes after 6:49, at 7:05 a.m., Trump posted on Truth Social that talks with Iran were progressing and strikes on energy infrastructure were paused; S&P futures rose more than two per cent. ¹¹

Bloomberg measured the same minutes differently: at least six million barrels of Brent and WTI crude were sold in the two minutes from 6:49 a.m., against a five-day average of about 700,000 barrels. ¹²

Senator Chris Murphy pointed to US$1.5 billion of S&P 500 futures bought while US$192 million of oil futures was sold in the moments before the pause was announced. ¹³

Rep. Ritchie Torres, on 8 April 2026, put the crude futures bets at more than US$500 million in the roughly fifteen minutes before the post, about nine times the average volume for that time of day, and asked the SEC and CFTC to investigate; crude fell more than 10 per cent. ¹⁴

These are three measurements of one event, Bloomberg’s barrel count, Murphy’s dollar figures, Torres’s crude-futures total, not to be added together. AFP reported a market operator’s calculation that put the profit on the Monday trades at US$ tens of millions. ⁵ In the CFTC’s press releases to 9 October 2026, THE RORT found no statement that the trading was illegal.

Update, 7 October 2026. The year has been added to the date of Rep. Torres’s request (8 April 2026); nothing else in this section has changed.

Correction, 19 October 2026. This section and the opening gave 6:49 a.m. as the time of the futures volume spike, citing CNBC ¹¹ alone, and said oil and stock futures "moved" or "spiked" on "no announced news". CNBC says that at "around 6:50 a.m." S&P 500 e-mini futures recorded "a sharp and isolated jump in volume", with a similar pattern in oil, and that Trump posted "roughly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m."; it notes "the absence of an obvious catalyst". The 6:49 a.m. start is Bloomberg's, for oil sold in two minutes from 6:49 a.m. ¹². The summary now cites both and says the volume spiked, and the sixteen minutes are measured from Bloomberg's 6:49 a.m. to the 7:05 a.m. post. Three sentences that said no regulator or finding had been recorded now say what THE RORT searched: the CFTC's press releases to 9 October 2026.

05The ceasefire day, and the probe

On 7 April 2026, about US$960 million was bet on oil prices falling before Trump announced a two-week ceasefire that evening, Washington time, which was the morning of 8 April in Australia; oil fell about 15 per cent. That was the trade visible at the time. It turned out to be one of four. ¹⁵³³³⁷

Reuters reported on 15 April 2026 that the CFTC is investigating oil futures trades on CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange platforms placed shortly before Trump’s Iran policy shifts, at least the 23 March and 7 April instances, and that investigators requested Tag 50 identifications of the entities behind the trades. The CFTC declined to comment; its enforcement director said the agency was “watching” for insider trading, focused on “policing market misconduct and manipulation, especially in energy markets.” ¹⁶

By May 2026, the inquiry had names, and a size. The Wall Street Journal reported that the CFTC was examining three firms over the 23 March trades, which were worth more than US$800 million: Qube Research and Technologies, a London investment manager, on about US$5 million in gains; Totsa, the trading arm of the French energy company TotalEnergies, on about US$200,000; and Forza Fund, a fund associated with the China-based Metabit Trading, on about US$10 million. All three denied knowledge of the matter: Qube and the Metabit-linked Forza Fund said they had not been contacted by the regulator, and Totsa said it was unaware of any investigation into its crude oil trading and was firmly committed to complying with all applicable market regulations. ³⁴

And it was not one bet, or two. By 7 May 2026 the Justice Department had joined the CFTC, and the two were examining at least four oil-futures trades that together made more than US$2.6 billion betting prices would drop right before they did. The Justice Department’s side, ABC News and NBC News reported, was led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The four trades were dated 23 March 2026, more than US$500 million, about fifteen minutes before Trump’s post delaying strikes on energy infrastructure; 7 April 2026, US$960 million, before the ceasefire; 17 April 2026, US$760 million, about twenty minutes before Iran’s foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz was reopening, the one trade timed to an Iranian statement rather than a Trump one; and 21 April 2026, US$430 million, about fifteen minutes before Trump extended the ceasefire, as Brent fell from US$100.91 to US$96.83 a barrel. The market data the reporting relied on does not identify who placed the trades, and does not prove anyone traded on inside information. ³³³⁵³⁶

The war did not end there. Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian signed a fourteen-point framework memorandum on 17 June, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and extending the ceasefire for talks. ⁹ On 2 and 3 August, Trump called off renewed strikes, citing allied pressure and the “perimeters of a deal” to reopen Hormuz; Brent fell eight per cent to about US$83. ¹⁷

After a month-long lull, the US bombed a Hormuz island on 30 August and struck further targets on 1 September. Trump called the strikes “large and powerful”; the IRGC struck US bases in Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan in response. ¹⁸

By 9 September, Brent stood at US$100.72 a barrel and WTI at US$95.25, with US diesel at a record US$5.94 a gallon, following US strikes on five Iranian tankers and Houthi attacks on Saudi facilities. ¹⁹

Update, 7 October 2026. Years have been added to the dates in this section (15 April, May, 7 May, and the four trade dates, all 2026), and the 7 April ceasefire announcement is now marked as the evening of 7 April in Washington, which was the morning of 8 April in Australia; this case’s Australian articles date the ceasefire’s market effect to 8 April for that reason. Reference ³⁷ has been added for the timing of the announcement. No fact has changed.

06The only CFTC penalty tied to the speeches or the war, to 5 October 2026

Correction, 7 October 2026. A passage here set out a Financial Times report of 30 March 2026, relayed by Al Jazeera, about the defence secretary, with the Pentagon’s reply and the letters it drew from members of Congress. The report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. Under this station’s method an adverse claim resting on an anonymous source alone is cut. The passage has been removed, along with the sentences elsewhere in the article that relied on it.

The only CFTC penalty tied to Trump’s own words or the war that this desk found, in the CFTC’s press releases to 5 October 2026, fell instead on Gabriel Perez, a White House teleprompter operator who bet on Kalshi between December 2025 and February 2026 on words in Trump’s speeches, using speech texts he had access to before delivery. The CFTC ordered him on 28 August 2026 to disgorge US$107,539.02 of profits and pay a US$65,000 civil penalty, a total its release title and CBS’s headline give as US$172,000, with a three-year trading ban. ²⁴³⁹

Correction, 15 October 2026. The summary of this article said that no finding of insider trading had been made and that the only penalty so far, US$172,000, fell on a White House teleprompter operator who bet on Trump’s speeches. That was wrong as written: the CFTC's settled order against Perez, which the CFTC titles an order for insider trading of mention market event contracts ³⁹, is a finding against him. CBS News and AP report that the CFTC found Perez had access to presidential speeches before they were delivered and “misappropriated that information”, “in breach of his duty of trust and confidence”, and that he made US$107,500 betting on words and phrases in Trump’s speeches between December 2025 and February 2026 ²⁴. The accurate statement is that no finding of insider trading has been made over the war trades, and that the CFTC has settled findings against Perez over bets on the president’s speeches. He was ordered to repay his profits in full and pay a US$65,000 civil penalty, which the CFTC said was a reduction because of his “exemplary cooperation”, with a three-year trading ban ²⁴. The summary now says so. The CFTC’s release puts the profits disgorged at US$107,539.02, which it describes as “over $107,500”; with the US$65,000 penalty that is US$172,539.02, and the US$172,000 in the release title and in CBS’s headline is that sum rounded down ³⁹²⁴. The passage on the order now gives the disgorgement as US$107,539.02 and US$172,000 as the headline total, where it had said the order was to repay US$107,500 and so reach US$172,000 in all. The standfirst, the introduction, the timeline, the key facts, the hero image and its description, the 10 September 2026 record and this section also called the Perez order the only penalty, or the only financial penalty any regulator had imposed. That is not what the sources carry. The CFTC press-release list as archived on 5 October 2026 ³⁹ shows that on 31 July 2026 the CFTC ordered former congressman George Santos to pay a US$17,500 civil penalty and disgorge US$17,569.98 for manipulating a contract on whether he would attend the State of the Union ⁴⁰; that it has filed complaints, with no penalty imposed, against Gannon Ken Van Dyke on 23 April over bets using classified information about the Maduro operation, whose criminal trial, on a not-guilty plea, is tentatively set for 7 December ⁴¹, and against Michele Spagnuolo on 27 May over bets allegedly placed using nonpublic information about Google's Year in Search 2025 list ⁴²; and Kalshi itself fined and suspended two traders in February ⁴³. None of those concerned bets on the president’s words or on the Iran war. What the sources carry is that the Perez order is the only CFTC penalty this desk found tied to the president’s speeches or the war, as at 5 October 2026. The passages now say so, dated. The heading of this section, which read 'The only man who paid', and its entry in the contents, said the same thing undated and did not allow for the Santos order of 31 July 2026 ⁴⁰; both now carry the date and the scope, and every reference to the section by name has been changed to match.

Update, 19 October 2026. THE RORT read the CFTC's press-release list again on 19 October 2026, from 17 September 2025 to 9 October 2026 ⁴⁴, and found no release announcing an insider-trading finding over oil-futures or prediction-market trades tied to the Iran war. The insider-trading releases in the list are the Perez order ³⁹ and the complaints over Maduro-related and Google search-result contracts. The Justice Department's press pages could not be read from this desk, so this statement is limited to the CFTC's releases.

07The product, the family’s other business, and where it stands

Trump Media announced on 16 July a paid feed called Truth API, delivering posts from influential Truth Social accounts, above all the president’s, faster than a regular push notification, aimed at trading firms. “Markets already move on Truth Social posts,” said chief executive Kevin McGurn. ²⁵

The feed went on sale on 1 August for up to US$100,000 a month. Renee Jones, a former senior SEC official, said the offering appeared to run afoul of insider trading laws, and Democratic senators asked the SEC to investigate. ²⁶

Separate from the trading, the president’s family had substantial crypto income in 2025. His disclosure, released 1 July 2026, reports more than US$1.4 billion of crypto income, its largest lines memecoin royalties of more than US$635 million and World Liberty Financial token sales of more than US$550 million, the token sales up ninefold from US$57 million in 2024, alongside sales of World Liberty business interests and a stablecoin equity sale. “There’s nothing illegal” and “nothing wrong,” Trump told CNBC. ²⁷

World Liberty sold 5.9 billion WLFI tokens privately to undisclosed investors; the Trump family entity DT Marks DEFI is entitled to 75 per cent of token sale proceeds after reserves and expenses, and family members hold 22.5 billion tokens, which have traded about 89 per cent off their peak. ²⁸ The family was entitled to roughly US$500 million from a 2025 deal with the company then called Alt5 Sigma, whose stock has since fallen more than 90 per cent; CNBC found no evidence anyone in Alt5’s August stock sale exploited the relationship. ²⁹

Public Citizen put the family’s total stake at about US$1 billion, with Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Barron Trump each adding about US$133 million to their net worth from it; a UAE entity bought 49 per cent of World Liberty four days before the inauguration, routing US$187 million to the family, and Steve Witkoff, the administration’s Iran negotiator, added US$280 million. ³⁰ Forbes valued Barron Trump at about US$150 million on his presumed WLFI holding; nothing in the record examined for this article shows he has sold or cashed out any of it. ³¹

On 15 August 2026 the OCC granted World Liberty Trust Co. conditional approval for a bank charter, the first time a sitting president’s family company has been granted bank status. “The most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said. ³²

None of this is a finding that Trump or anyone around him traded on inside information (corrected 7 October 2026: a name was removed from this sentence; see the correction in the section “The only CFTC penalty tied to the speeches or the war, to 5 October 2026”). It is a dated record of trades, letters, a joint Justice Department and CFTC investigation into more than US$2.6 billion of oil-futures bets, and, as at 5 October 2026, one CFTC penalty, paid by a teleprompter operator, not by anyone who traded oil or crude futures. The prediction market where the same war was bet on in yes-or-no shares is where this case turns next; from there it crosses to Australia.

A joint federal probe of more than US$2.6 billion in bets, and, by 5 October 2026, one CFTC penalty, paid by a teleprompter operator.

If it’s a rort, we cover it.

Correction, 15 October 2026. This section and its pull quote called the Perez order “one penalty” without a date. The CFTC press-release list as archived on 5 October 2026 shows it is the one CFTC penalty found tied to the president’s speeches or the war, but not the only CFTC penalty over a prediction market; see the correction in the section “The only CFTC penalty tied to the speeches or the war, to 5 October 2026” ³⁹⁴⁰. The passages now say “as at 5 October 2026, one CFTC penalty”.