It took just sixty seconds. Between 6:49 AM and 6:50 AM New York time on Monday, roughly 6,200 Brent and WTI crude futures contracts changed hands — a burst of activity worth approximately $580 million, according to the Financial Times, which based its calculations on Bloomberg data. Minutes later, US President Donald Trump posted on social media about “productive” talks with Iran.
Oil prices promptly tumbled. The highly concentrated nature of the trades — simultaneously spiking in both major benchmarks — has raised pointed questions about whether some market participants had advance knowledge of Trump’s announcement. While no formal investigation has been announced, the episode has reignited long-standing concerns about information asymmetry in commodity markets and the outsized power of a single social media post to move billions of dollars in asset values.
Iran, for its part, flatly denied that any talks had taken place. But the damage — or the profit, depending on where you sat — was already done. Oil prices fell and stock markets jumped as observers scrambled to parse the contradiction between Trump’s claims and Tehran’s denial.
