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

Written by Golem

Is Trump a competent president? Hard to say, but he’s definitely an excellent trader in the financial markets.

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 Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure had been postponed for five days.

This statement caused gold, which had plummeted earlier due to inflation concerns and rising global interest rate expectations, to rebound instantly. According to Gate Data, after Trump’s post, gold, which had fallen for a day, rebounded over $200. The S&P 500 futures also rose nearly 4%. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil, which had dipped from $113 to $97 per barrel, fell more than 14%.

But within less than an hour, Iranian media responded with “fact-checking,” claiming 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.”

Faced with this rebuttal, Trump simply said, “I don’t know what Iranian media is talking about,” trying to brush it off. To the general audience, this looks like another episode of T.A.C.O. (Trump Always Chickens Out), but for traders, it’s a mixed bag of joy and worry. Because this series of events caused the market to fluctuate by over a trillion dollars within hours.

According to The Kobeissi Letter, 15 minutes before Trump’s post, a large nominal $1.5 billion S&P 500 futures order appeared mysteriously in the market. The size was so large that it directly pushed the S&P index up about 0.3% in one minute. Fifteen minutes later, the trader or institution behind that $1.5 billion position pocketed $60 million.

Besides this profit-taking trader, there were also traders who accurately timed the top. The Financial Times reported that, also 15 minutes before Trump’s post, about 6,200 Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude futures contracts were sold, with a nominal value of $580 million.

Placing large orders before major market news is more like insider trading than news trading. But whether Trump was behind it? That’s hard to say. After all, this isn’t the first time Trump has done such things. Iranian scholar Seyed Mohammad Marandi posted on X that “every week at market open, Trump makes such statements to suppress oil prices, and even the five-day deadline he set coincides with the energy market’s close.”

In other words, these seemingly insider trades might also 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 methods of influencing the market are not new, and each time, they’re highly effective.

The most typical example was last year’s tariff turmoil. 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 then the White House 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 appeared.

On April 9, Trump first hyped his stocks on Truth Social, saying, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” A few hours later, he announced a new tariff policy, which was almost identical to 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 the three major US indices rising sharply, marking a rare single-day rally.

A mediocre trader can only create a rally with one good piece of news, but Trump can generate two with one.

Now, under the influence of war, every word from the leaders and official media of the conflicting sides carries leverage. A tough statement can send gold soaring; a de-escalation can cause risk assets to rebound immediately, creating a “word-driven” market.

Dealing with a master like Trump, even prediction markets that claim to see through the truth can be played around. According to Odaily Seer, after Trump’s post about the US-Iran talks making good 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 hoax, 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’re overlooking another more valuable business—political gains from a rising stock market. Trump, a businessman, understands this economic calculation better than anyone.

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 needed a quick indicator to prove to voters that he was making progress, and the booming stock market became the best “substitute” for economic prosperity.

In his first term, Trump repeatedly boasted about new highs in the Dow and S&P, almost treating the stock market as a personal approval meter. But when 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 his political donors.

This script has played out in the crypto space too. Trump was once called America’s first “Crypto President” because, in 2024 and early 2025, during the US election cycle, he frequently reached out to the crypto industry—attending conferences, making promises, and issuing crypto-friendly policies—each time boosting the market. In return, the crypto industry supported him with millions of American voters and hundreds of millions in political donations.

Manipulating the market without purely seeking profit also gives Trump legal loopholes. Many US lawmakers and regulators have accused him of profiting from crypto market manipulation, but these allegations have mostly faded due to lack of direct evidence of financial gain.

After the recent March 23 farce, some even accused Trump of insider trading. White House spokesperson Kush Desai stated that the White House does not tolerate officials profiting illegally from insider information—provided there’s evidence. But “profiting” here mostly refers to economic gains. Trump, having distanced himself from his family business and gone behind the scenes, operates through complex political and commercial maneuvers within legal gaps.

That’s Trump’s real “genius.” He knows that in this world, power supersedes money; but he also understands how money can influence the power structure in turn.