Is Pete Hegseth Killing Iranians to Get Rich?
John Cassidy noted in The New Yorker that this was not the first time that traders were prescient about Trump’s actions. “The day before the start of the war,” he wrote, “six accounts on Polymarket, the online prediction site, bet that the United States would strike Iran within forty-eight hours, realizing net profits of over a million dollars. In January, another Polymarket account won big betting that Nicolas Madurothe president of Venezuela, would soon be out of power.»
Iran is also waging a stock market war. ” Attention ” Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, job on X last Sunday. “So-called pre-market ‘news’ or ‘Truth’ is often just a setup to make a profit. Basically, it’s an inverse indicator. Do the opposite: if they pump it, sell it. If they dump it, go long. See something tomorrow? You know the drill.” Ghalibaf also used X to try to choke the US bond market. “Alongside military bases, the financial entities that finance the American military budget are legitimate targets,” Ghalibaf job March 22. “US Treasuries are soaked in Iranian blood. Buy them, and you buy a strike on your seat and assets. We are watching your portfolios. This is your final notice.” And on March 21, Ghalibaf worked to raise oil prices with the position“Lifting sanctions on Iranian oil currently stuck at sea? Sorry, we’re exhausted.”
Except perhaps on oil prices, Ghalibaf’s attempts to manipulate markets have been unsuccessful; 10-year Treasury yields fell (i.e. purchases increased) after Ghalibaf threatened to kill people who bought treasury bonds, and Ghalibaf’s “sold out” message appears to be an outright lie. Ghalibaf’s claim that the pre-market Trump news was bullshit was, as was my TNR colleague Malcolm Ferguson underlinesprecisely, but this did not influence the market. Closing the Strait of Hormuz, which lies outside of cyberspace, proved to be a much more effective decision.
