Big oil bets examined
Wall Street Breakfast
Seeking Alpha
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning. |
| 0:07.6 | It's good to be with you on this Wednesday, May 20th. I'm Julie Morgan. |
| 0:13.5 | The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is scrutinizing a spike in oil futures trading that happened just before President Trump postponed strikes on Iran's |
| 0:22.9 | energy infrastructure in March. The Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter |
| 0:29.0 | that more than $800 million worth of oil futures were traded in a matter of minutes, right before |
| 0:35.3 | President Trump postponed the strikes on March 23rd. |
| 0:39.1 | The CFTC is looking into whether an insider with prior knowledge of Trump's decision |
| 0:44.3 | traded on that information or leaked it to someone who could do so. |
| 0:48.6 | At least five firms posted gains of $5 million or more on crude futures they traded on March 23rd, according to trading |
| 0:57.0 | records viewed by the Wall Street Journal. Some of the companies approached by the CFTC said |
| 1:02.5 | their trading decisions were based on a semaphore report, which was published minutes before |
| 1:08.0 | Trump's announcement. These firms have not been accused of wrongdoing, but the CFTC is interested in at least |
| 1:14.8 | three firms as part of its investigation, but it's unclear why. |
| 1:19.3 | Investment firm Cube Research and Technologies earned about $5 million of adjusted gains on those |
| 1:25.3 | trades. |
| 1:26.4 | Forza Fund earned around $10 million, and total energies trading armed Totsa recorded a $200,000 |
| 1:33.1 | profit. |
| 1:34.5 | Cube COO. Stewart Brown declined to comment on any regulatory investigation, but told the |
| 1:40.7 | Wall Street Journal that the firm's investment decisions are model-driven, |
| 1:44.7 | not a directional trade driven by a specific geopolitical, comment, update, or outcome. |
| 1:51.0 | Total Energy said it is not aware of any CFTC investigation into TOTSA's crude oil trading |
| 1:57.1 | activities. A representative for Metabit trading, a Chinese firm linked to the |
... |
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