Did they win or lose the war? Trump: We profited.

Author: Golem; Editor: Hao Fangzhou

Whether Trump is a competent president is hard to judge, but he is definitely an excellent financial market operator.

On March 23, Trump once again began his questionable maneuvering regarding the US-Iran conflict. At 19:05 Beijing time, he posted on Truth Social that the US and Iran had held productive talks over the past two days and had postponed all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure by 5 days.

This statement immediately caused gold, which had plummeted in the previous days due to inflation concerns and rising expectations of global interest rate hikes, to rebound instantly. According to Gate data, after Trump's post, gold, which had fallen for a day, rebounded by more than $200, and S&P 500 futures also rose by nearly 4%. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil fell from a low of $113 per barrel to a low of $97, a drop of more than 14%. However, less than an hour later, Iranian media jumped in to debunk the claims, 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 as saying that Trump's remarks were a form of "psychological warfare." Faced with this setback, Trump attempted to brush it off with a dismissive "I don't know what the Iranian media is saying." To onlookers, this was just another T.A.C.O. (Trump Always Chickens Out) performance by Trump, but for traders, it was a mixed bag. This combination of events caused market volatility exceeding one trillion dollars within hours. According to The Kobeissi Letter, 15 minutes before Trump's post, a large buy order for S&P 500 futures with a nominal value of $1.5 billion appeared inexplicably in the market. Because the order was so large, it directly boosted the S&P index by approximately 0.3% within one minute. Fifteen minutes later, this trader/institution with a $1.5 billion position pocketed $60 million. Besides this trader who reaped the full profits, there are also traders in the market who accurately timed market tops. According to the Financial Times, approximately 6,200 Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contracts were sold off 15 minutes before Trump's post, with a notional value of $580 million. Making large-scale purchases or sales before major market news announcements is less like news trading and more like classic insider trading. However, whether the source can be traced back to Trump is uncertain. After all, this isn't the first time Trump has done something like this. Iranian scholar Seyed Mohammad Marandi wrote on the X platform that, "Every week when the market opens, Trump makes these kinds of statements to suppress oil prices, and even the five-day deadline he sets coincides with the energy market's closing time." This means that those trades that seem to involve insider trading may actually be the work of top traders who have figured out Trump's tactics. It wouldn't be surprising if Wall Street were to study Trump as a separate market trading indicator, as this isn't the first time he's used this method to influence the market, and it has been remarkably effective each time. Last year's tariff controversy was a prime example. On April 7, 2025, as US stocks were being battered by Trump's reciprocal tariff policies, rumors suddenly circulated that the White House was preparing to suspend tariffs on most countries except China for 90 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by about 800 points upon the news, but the White House subsequently denied it as "fake news," and the Dow Jones ultimately closed down 629 points that day. Few people initially doubted whether this rumor was spread by Trump's cronies, but the answer quickly became clear. On April 9th, Trump, speaking on Truth Social, first to promote his own stocks, said, "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT." A few hours later, he announced a new tariff policy, essentially identical to the "fake news" circulating in the market two days prior: a 90-day suspension of "reciprocal tariffs" on countries that had not taken retaliatory measures, but an increase in tariffs on China to 125%. The market rallied again, with all three major US stock indices rising, marking a significant single-day rebound unseen for many days. A mediocre trader can only create one wave of price increases with a single piece of positive news, while Trump can create two waves with one piece of positive news. In today's war-torn environment, every word spoken by the leaders and official media of both sides in the conflict naturally carries price leverage. A strong statement can send gold soaring; a conciliatory statement can cause risk assets to rebound immediately, demonstrating the power of words in the financial markets. Even the prediction markets, which claim to be ahead of the curve in understanding events, can be completely manipulated by a master strategist like Trump. According to monitoring by Odaily Seer (https://t.me/Odaily_Seer), after Trump posted that the US-Iran dialogue had made good progress, the probability of a "US-Iran ceasefire by March 31" event on Polymarket quickly rose to 54%. However, after it was discovered to be a hoax, the probability quickly dropped back to 16%, and has now fallen to 12%. Did Trump intentionally manipulate the market? The answer is definitely yes. But was it just for money? If you look at it that way, you're overlooking another, more profitable deal—the political benefits behind the stock market boom. A businessman by trade, Trump understands this economic calculation better than anyone. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised that if he won the election, he would usher in a new era of Trump-style economic prosperity. However, economic development takes time, and economic prosperity is inherently a subjective concept for ordinary people—having money to spend equates to prosperity, while lack of money signifies a lack of prosperity. Therefore, Trump desperately needed an immediate indicator to demonstrate to voters that he was achieving results, and a booming stock market became the best "substitute" for economic prosperity. During Trump's first term, he repeatedly touted the Dow Jones and S&P 500 reaching new highs, practically using the stock market as a personal performance gauge. But every time Trump used rhetoric to influence the stock market, he had to appease not only individual investors but also the capital and business owners behind them, as they were often already or would eventually become Trump's political donors. This scenario has already played out in the crypto space. Trump was previously dubbed the first "crypto president" of the United States because, during the 2024 US election year and early in his presidency in 2025, he frequently extended olive branches to the crypto industry, such as participating in crypto industry conferences, making various crypto promises, and enacting crypto-friendly laws. Each time, this generated upward momentum in the crypto market. In return, the crypto industry reciprocated with the support of tens of millions of American voters and hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations from crypto companies. Not manipulating the market for profit also allowed Trump to exploit legal loopholes. Numerous US lawmakers and regulatory officials have previously accused Trump of profiting from manipulating the crypto market, but these accusations ultimately came to nothing because there was no direct evidence showing that Trump gained economic benefits from the market. Following the farce on March 23, some accused Trump of insider trading. White House spokesman Kush Desai stated that the White House does not tolerate any official illegally profiting from insider information, provided there is evidence. However, the "profiting" referred to here mostly refers to economic gain. Trump, on the other hand, has long since withdrawn from his family business and retreated behind the scenes, employing intricate political and business tactics within legal loopholes. This is Trump's true "brilliance." He knows that in this world, power trumps money; but he also understands how money, in turn, influences the power structure.