I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Approximately 20 minutes before the announcement of the Strait of Hormuz's opening, a $760 million short position in oil entered the market with pinpoint accuracy. Within just one minute, a total of 7,990 Brent crude futures contracts were sold. Following the news, oil prices fell as much as 11% that day. This marks the third instance of such massive short positions appearing shortly before major policy announcements in the past two months, with a combined scale exceeding $2.2 billion. The U.S. CFTC has launched an investigation into these trades
A massive short position placed just 20 minutes before news was released has once again brought the "mysterious trading" in the oil market to light.
On April 17, approximately 20 minutes before Iran's Foreign Minister announced the full opening of the Strait of Hormuz to all commercial vessels, a crude oil short position worth about $760 million quietly executed. Once the news broke, oil prices fell by as much as 11% that day. According to Reuters, this is the third time in recent months that a similar scenario has occurred—someone taking a heavy short position on oil just before a major policy announcement.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has launched an investigation into the matter. A source familiar with the situation told the media that the CFTC is investigating a series of oil price futures trades, including two transactions on March 23 and April 7, both occurring shortly before President Trump made significant statements regarding policies on a potential war with Iran.
20 Minutes, 7,990 Contracts, $760 Million
Data from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) shows that between 12:24 and 12:25 GMT on April 17, investors sold a total of 7,990 Brent crude futures contracts within just one minute, equivalent to approximately $760 million at the prevailing price.
At 12:45 GMT, Iran's Foreign Minister posted on X, announcing that the Strait of Hormuz would be "fully open" to all commercial vessels for the remainder of the ceasefire period, using language consistent with the Lebanon ceasefire agreement.
Within minutes of the announcement, the intraday decline in oil prices widened to 11%.
The gap between the entry of the short position and the release of the news was only 20 minutes.
Three Trades, One Pattern
This is not an isolated incident. As previously reported by Reuters, there have been two other trades with similar characteristics recently:
On April 7, hours before the U.S. and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire agreement, a crude oil short position worth approximately $950 million was quietly established.
On March 23, 15 minutes before President Trump announced a delay in attacks on Iran's energy infrastructure, investors dumped about $500 million worth of crude oil futures, causing oil prices to fall by 15%.
The combined value of these three trades exceeds $2.2 billion, and all were executed within an extremely narrow window prior to major policy announcements. This highly consistent timing pattern is the core reason triggering regulatory scrutiny.
U.S. Regulators Step In to Investigate
The precision of the timing for this series of trades has raised high-level concerns among U.S. lawmakers and legal experts—they fear that information asymmetry in war and diplomatic decision-making is being exploited by certain traders to gain an advantage in derivative markets.
According to sources familiar with the matter speaking to Reuters, the CFTC has formally launched an investigation into the aforementioned series of trades, focusing particularly on the transactions on March 23 and April 7.
U.S. lawmakers and legal experts point out that war and diplomatic decisions are inherently highly opaque; if relevant information is known by some market participants before it becomes public, it poses a serious challenge to the fairness of derivative markets.
Currently, the CFTC has not publicly disclosed the progress of the investigation, nor have the identities of the parties involved in the trades been confirmed.