Traders bet half a billion dollars on the price of crude only 15 minutes before US President Donald Trump announced a five-day delay to attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure that sent the market plunging, exchange data and Reuters calculations showed.
Having issued Iran with a Monday deadline to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz or face its power plants being “obliterated”, Trump’s post on Truth Social on Monday unleashed a powerful selloff in oil and natural gas.
Brent crude fell as much as 15 per cent in a matter of minutes as Trump indicated constructive talks between Washington and Tehran were ongoing, prompting investors to price in the possibility of a de-escalation that could unblock the millions of barrels of oil now choked off in the Gulf.
LSEG data shows that between 10.49am and 10.50am GMT, traders placed bets on 5,100 lots of Brent and WTI crude futures, worth well over $500m, based on a Reuters calculation. The data also shows that, in the minute in which those contracts changed hands, it was selling that dominated volumes. It was not possible to establish who traded the oil.
The roughly 2,000-lot spike in volume in Brent futures at that point was far larger than those logged earlier in the day. But turnover was dwarfed by what followed when Trump posted. Over 13,000 lots of Brent and WTI crude futures, equivalent to 13 million barrels of oil, changed hands in the space of 60 seconds at 11.05am GMT.
Brent crude crashed to around $99 a barrel from $112 before the pre-announcement trades took place, while WTI fell to $86 from closer to $99 prior to Trump’s post.
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