CFTC staff were told to retract analysis of suspicious oil trades

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Memphis Air National Guard Base in Tennessee on March 23. | REUTERS

Oct 14, 2026

When U.S. President Donald Trump backed away from threats to strike Iranian power plants on March 23, it sparked a frenzy of buying and selling across oil, equities and other markets.

Traders had grown accustomed to prices lurching wildly on developments in the Middle East. But this time, some bettors had timed it perfectly. Billions of dollars’ worth of contracts predicting oil would fall and the S&P 500 would rise were placed about 15 minutes before the president announced his U-turn in a post on Truth Social, fueling widespread speculation about whether someone had an unfair advantage.

Responsibility for looking into the incident fell to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal derivatives regulator whose remit — and profile — has soared with the advent of cryptocurrencies and prediction markets. There, a team of career forensic analysts embarked on their usual task of pulling together data on the day’s winners and losers.

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