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In a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig being sent Friday and shared exclusively with CNBC, Liccardo said he wrote to “express alarm over recent reporting that indicates large trades were made on crude oil prices and S&P 500 E-mini Futures right before the President announced action, or lack thereof, in Iran.”
“The timing indicates bets were placed by those with advance knowledge of the President’s action, strongly suggesting illicit trading on insider information, in violation of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936, and the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012,” Liccardo wrote.
A Reuters report on April 8 said that a major bet on oil was placed just hours before a U.S.-Iran ceasefire, resulting in a lucrative payout.
“This activity marks the latest in a series of well-timed, large-volume trades made right before the President announced the next actions of the United States in the Iran war,” said Liccardo, a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, which oversees securities and exchanges.
Several other trades amid the Iran war effort have prompted scrutiny. On March 23, a flurry of activity in S&P 500 e-Mini futures on CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume. A similar trend emerged in oil markets.
The trades came about 15 minutes before Trump posted to Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and that he was postponing expected attacks on civilian infrastructure. The market rallied after that and oil futures tumbled.
U.S. regulators are now reportedly probing the trades, with the CFTC leading the effort. Liccardo, in the letter, urged the SEC to also open an investigation.
Liccardo said that a recent White House memo instructing officials not to partake in insider trading activity on prediction markets “provides little comfort.”
“No one in federal service needs to be ‘reminded’ of the blatant illegality of personal financial enrichment from their exploitation of confidential information garnered through public service,” he wrote.
Liccardo asked Atkins whether the SEC has opened an investigation into the trades, and what tools the SEC has to investigate them. He also sought information on how the regulators can crack down on prediction market insider trading and what the agencies are doing to ensure government employees aren’t profiting off of insider knowledge.
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