CFTC Staff Were Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades

When 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.