• Hadriscus@jlai.lu
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    16 hours ago

    Someone more knowledgeable clarify this to me ?

    “Pete Hegseth tried to make a LOSING insider trade on his advance knowledge of Trump’s Iran war plans, which he advised to start,” Grant Stern, managing editor of Occupy Democrats, posted on X. “This is the height of criminality and incompetence.”

    How was the trade losing ? whatever stock it was went down ? was it something akin to weapons manufacturing ? and if I understand correctly, it was expected to go up because of their involvement in the “war effort” ?

    • Shirasho@lemmings.world
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      16 hours ago

      You can gamble on whether a stock price will rise or fall. When going to war, stock prices for war companies rise because they are expected to get a lot of business, but if that call to war is suddenly canceled, then the stock price for that company decreases.

      If he made a losing bet, one of two things happened:

      1. The value of the stock was going to drop way below the value it started at, so he would earn a large payout on that gamble.

      2. He was funneling large amounts of money to other insider traders.

      • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
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        16 hours ago

        Thank you. I didn’t know that was possible. How do you do such a gamble, practically ? Is it something that banks offer, or something you can do from a smartphone app ?

        Additionally, how does #2 work ?

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      13 hours ago

      There are ways to make money when stocks go up, of course, but there are also ways to make money when stocks go down. We don’t know the details, but the bottom line is that he bet one way, and the market went the other.

    • Ænima@lemmy.zip
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      16 hours ago

      Don’t have to be a good criminal to do crime! Dude’s an amateur at insider-trading!

      • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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        15 hours ago

        Martha Stewart did this shit. You might argue she is more competent than Hegseth. And she went to prison.

    • 8oow3291d@feddit.dk
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      15 hours ago

      The tweet is linked, but doesn’t give any details. So we don’t know - and it might well not be true. What can be asserted without proof, can be rejected without proof.