Author: Golem; Editor: Hao Fangzhou
Whether Trump is a competent president is hard to judge, but he is definitely an excellent market manipulator.
On March 23, Trump once again started his antics regarding the US-Iran conflict. At 19:05 Beijing time, he posted on Truth Social that the US and Iran had productive talks over the past two days, and all military strikes against Iran’s power plants and energy infrastructure had been postponed for five days.
As soon as this statement was made, gold, which had plummeted days earlier due to inflation concerns and rising global interest rate expectations, instantly rebounded. According to Gate data, after Trump’s post, gold, which had fallen for a day, surged back over $200. The S&P 500 futures also rose nearly 4%. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil dropped from a low of $113 per barrel to $97, a decline of over 14%.
However, less than an hour later, Iranian media came out to “debunk” the claim, stating that there had been no direct or indirect contact between the US and Iran. Iran’s Tasnim News Agency even quoted a senior Iranian security official saying Trump’s remarks were “psychological warfare.”
In response to this rebuttal, Trump simply claimed he was “not sure what Iranian media is talking about,” trying to brush it off. To the general public, this looked like another episode of T.A.C.O. (Trump Always Chickens Out), but for traders, it meant mixed feelings. Because this series of events within a few hours caused market fluctuations exceeding one trillion dollars.
According to The Kobeissi Letter, 15 minutes before Trump’s post, an inexplicable large order of $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures appeared on the market. Due to its size, it immediately pushed the S&P index up about 0.3% within a minute. Fifteen minutes later, the trader or institution holding this $1.5 billion position pocketed $60 million.
Besides this profit-taking, some traders accurately timed their exits. The Financial Times reported that about 6,200 Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate futures contracts were sold off within 15 minutes of Trump’s post, with a nominal value of $580 million.
Placing large positions before major market news is more akin to insider trading than news trading. But whether the source can be traced back to Trump remains uncertain. After all, Trump isn’t new to such actions. Iranian scholar Seyed Mohammad Marandi posted on X that “Trump often makes such statements at market open to suppress oil prices,” and even the five-day deadline he set coincides with the energy market’s closing hours.
This suggests that what appears to be insider trading might actually be top traders who have figured out Trump’s routines. If Wall Street truly treats Trump as a market indicator, it’s not surprising—his influence tactics have been used multiple times with remarkable success.
Last year’s tariff turmoil is a prime example. On April 7, 2025, US stocks were battered by Trump’s retaliatory tariffs. Suddenly, news broke that the White House was preparing to suspend tariffs for most countries except China for 90 days. The Dow surged about 800 points on the news, but the White House quickly denied it as “fake news,” and the Dow closed down 629 points that day.
Few doubted whether this rumor was spread by Trump’s interests behind the scenes, but the answer soon became clear.
On April 9, Trump first endorsed his own stocks on Truth Social, saying, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” A few hours later, he announced a new tariff policy that largely aligned with the “fake news” from two days earlier: suspending retaliatory tariffs for non-China countries for 90 days, while increasing tariffs on China to 125%. The market soared again, with all three major US indices rallying sharply, marking a rare single-day rebound.
A mediocre trader can only create a rally with one piece of good news, but Trump can generate two.
Now, under the context of war, every statement from the conflicting parties’ leaders and official media carries inherent price leverage. A tough stance can send gold soaring; a tone of easing can cause risk assets to rebound immediately—playing out “words as law” in financial markets.
Dealing with a master like Trump, even prediction markets that claim to be “ahead of the curve” can be played like fools. According to Odaily Seer’s monitoring, after Trump’s post about US-Iran progress, the probability of “US and Iran reaching a ceasefire before March 31” on Polymarket shot up to 54%. Once it was revealed to be a farce, the probability plummeted back to 16%, and now it’s down to 12%.
Is Trump intentionally manipulating the market? Of course. But is he just doing it for profit? If you think so, you overlook another more lucrative business—political dividends behind a rising stock market. Trump, a businessman by background, is well aware of this economic calculus.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised that if he won, he would usher in a new era of Trump’s economic prosperity. But economic growth takes time, and prosperity is a subjective concept—if you have money to spend, you’re prosperous; if not, you’re not. Trump urgently needed a clear indicator to prove to voters that he was making progress, so stock market prosperity became the best “substitute” for economic prosperity.
In his first term, Trump repeatedly boasted about record highs in the Dow and S&P 500, almost treating the stock market as a personal approval rating. But every time he influenced the market with rhetoric, he was not only pleasing investors but also the capital and business owners behind them, many of whom are or will become Trump’s political donors.
This script has played out in the crypto space as well. Trump was once called America’s first “Crypto President” because during the 2024 US election year and early 2025, he frequently reached out to the crypto industry—attending conferences, making various promises, and issuing crypto-friendly legislation—all of which fueled market rallies. In return, the crypto industry supported Trump with millions of dollars in political donations and millions of American voters.
Manipulating the market without the sole purpose of profit also gives Trump legal wiggle room. Countless US lawmakers and regulators have accused Trump of profiting from crypto market manipulation, but these allegations ultimately went nowhere due to lack of direct evidence that Trump gained financial benefits.
After the recent chaos on March 23, some also accused Trump of insider trading. White House spokesperson Kush Desai stated that the White House does not tolerate any officials profiting illegally from insider information, provided there is evidence. But “profiting” here mostly refers to economic gains. Trump? He has long detached himself from family businesses, staying behind the scenes, employing complex political and commercial tactics within legal loopholes.
This is Trump’s true “genius.” He knows that in this world, power supersedes money; but he also understands how money can influence the power system in turn.
