Markets surge to record highs, dollar jumps following Trump victory



President Donald Trump promised to usher in the "golden age of America" in his victory speech early Wednesday morning. At the open of trading hours later, the Dow gained over 1,320 points (in excess of 3%) while the S&P 500 index increased by 1.9% and the Nasdaq rose by 2.2%.

CNN indicated that this is the first time the Dow has jumped over 1,000 points in a single day since November 2022.

While some analysts suspect the decisiveness of the win may have put some investors at ease, others figure Trump's policy proposals — especially those pertaining to deregulation and taxes — have investors excited.

Michael Block, COO at AgentSmyth, told CNN, "There is this huge perception of [a] business friendly, tax-friendly regime coming into place, especially with them winning the Senate."

'Business animal spirits could be rekindled once again.'

Republicans have secured a majority in the U.S. Senate and are poised to keep the House.

"Assuming the House goes Republican, we expect that a Red Sweep outcome will play out in a similar fashion to the 2016 playbook but to a lesser degree given a more mature economic backdrop and higher equity valuations," Jeff Schulze at ClearBridge Investments told Bloomberg. "Business animal spirits could be rekindled once again from Trump's pro-business approach."

As it became clear Trump was going to win in a landslide, the price of Bitcoin rocketed from south of $70,000 to over $75,000 overnight, zigzagging around $74,400 Wednesday morning. This jump was energized by Trump's embrace of crypto on the campaign trail.

In July, Trump told crypto boosters at a Bitcoin conference in Tennessee that he would make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the planet."

Not only did the U.S. dollar rise against the euro, the peso, the Japanese yen, and the Chinese yuan in response to Trump's landslide win — the biggest rise since March 2020 — the New York Times indicated that yields on U.S. government bonds also climbed sharply. Treasury 10-year yields reportedly advanced 18 basis points to 4.45%.

While the American market was ostensibly made great again, European stocks took a tumble Wednesday afternoon. CNBC noted that the pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.68% by 4 p.m. London time.

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Israel investigating allegations that traders profited off foreknowledge of October 7 Hamas attacks



Israeli officials are investigating allegations that some traders made substantial stock market profits on the basis of advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.

Authorities acknowledged a probe was under way following the Dec. 3 release of a damning report titled, "Trading in Terror?" wherein two university law professors indicated that "days before the attack, short selling of Israeli securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange increased dramatically."

In their 66-page report, SEC commissioner Robert Jackson Jr., a professor at New York University, and Columbia University professor Joshua Mitts noted that much attention has been paid to how Hamas may have financed the attacks, but "little attention has been given to trading in securities markets in advance of October 7—an important omission given the relative sizes of the cryptocurrency and securities markets."

Five days prior to the slaughter of at least 1,200 people by Hamas terrorists, "nearly 100% of the off-exchange trading volume in the MSCI Israel ETF ... consisted of short selling."

The researchers highlighted how short selling in early October greatly exceeded the short selling that occurred during other times of crisis, such as the financial crisis, the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, and the COVID-19 pandemic. They also ruled out seasonality and random chance.

Short selling entails borrowing a security, selling it on the open market, then buying it back later for significantly less money. Short sellers profit from a drop in a security's price.

"Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate the events to come: on October 2, short interest in the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) suddenly, and significantly, spiked," said the report. "And just before the attack, short selling of Israeli securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange increased dramatically."

"For one Israeli company alone, 4.43 million new shares sold short over the September 14 to October 5 period yielded profits (or approximates avoided losses) of 3.2 billion NIS [$862 million] on that additional short selling," said the report.

Jackson and Mitts observed suspicious patterns going back to at least April, when Hamas was reportedly beginning to plan its attacks.

The duo determined that "traders informed about the coming attacks profited from these tragic events" by short selling on the U.S. and Israeli stock exchanges. While the researchers could not ascertain who the traders were, Israeli authorities appear keen to find out.

The Israel Securities Authority told Reuters, "The matter is known to the authority and is under investigation by all the relevant parties."

Reuters indicated a spokesman for the securities regulator would not elaborate and that Israeli police did not provide comment.

Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School, told CNN that "regulators appear to lack the ability to discover the entities responsible for this trading, which is unfortunate."

Mitts indicated that neither he nor his co-author Jackson are suggesting Hamas necessarily had been making the trades. Rather multiple actors, individual, corporate, governmental and/or terroristic may have acted upon advance insights into Hamas' plans.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told CNN it "does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation." A spokesman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said the same for his regulator.

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Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried under criminal investigation for market manipulation, which may have helped wipe $1 trillion from crypto market



Disgraced Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried is in hot water, and not just for running his crypto exchange FTX into the ground or for admitting that he masqueraded as a "woke westerner."

Federal prosecutors have reportedly launched a criminal investigation into whether SBF manipulated prices of two cryptocurrencies in order to benefit his companies.

Fixing to win

The New York Times reported that U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan are looking into whether SBF manipulated and drove down the prices of two interlinked cryptocurrencies — TerraUSD and Luna — in order to benefit his companies FTX and Alameda Research.

SBF, called "one of the greatest fraudsters in history" by former rival and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, claimed in a statement that he was "not aware of any market manipulation and certainly never intended to engage in market manipulation."

The Democrat benefactor did not, however, expressly state that he had not engaged in market manipulation.

SBF said, "To the best of my knowledge, all transactions were for investment or for hedging."

The fall

TerraUSD is a so-called "stablecoin" whose value was supposed to be tied to the U.S. dollar. It operates on the Terra blockchain.

According to Investopedia, the currency was always intended to be worth exactly one dollar, "enabling transactions to process with predictable results and giving cryptocurrency investors and traders an option to store their assets in cryptocurrency without the risk and volatility associated with typical digital currencies."

Luna was the sister cryptocurrency of TerraUSD.

KRON reported that the idea behind Luna was that it was interchangeable with Terra, helpful if either traded under the desired price.

Both currencies became virtually worthless in May, with TerraUSD hitting a low of roughly $0.30 on May 11 and Luna dropping from $85 the previous week to about 4 cents, together wiping away over $50 billion in market value.

The New York Post reported that the crash of these currencies cleaned out billionaires and retail investors alike, resulting in bankruptcies and suicide attempts.

The resultant financial outlook became so bleak for so many investors that national suicide hotlines for various nations were reportedly pinned to the top of the Terra/Luna subreddit.

The consequence of this incident was not isolated. Instead, it sent ripples throughout the crypto world, bankrupting various prominent companies and, according to the Times, helping erase $1 trillion in value from the crypto market.

The push

The Times reported that prior to the crash, there were reports of a "flood of sell orders" for TerraUSD that "overwhelmed the system" and sent the currencies' prices plummeting. Luna prices also began to rapidly drop, owing to the incestuous linkage between the two currencies.

These sell orders for Terra USD just happened to originate from SBF's trading firm Alameda Research, a source told the Times. Alameda Research reportedly had also bet against Luna's price at the time of the crash.

Perhaps in a karmic twist, SBF's empire would ultimately reap the whirlwind he allegedly kicked up. The resultant market chaos reportedly led to loans conferred on Alameda getting recalled.

The Times indicated that SBF's ex-lover and Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison told staff that Alameda, unable to get its hands on the borrowed funds, ended up using FTX customer funds to pay back the loans.

When panic set in about the crypto exchange's viability, customers tried to withdraw their money en masse. Unable to meet the demands, FTX eventually imploded.

The investigations

While SBF has yet to be charged with a crime, Richard Levin, a partner and financial technology lawyer at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, told CNBC that the former FTX CEO presently faces three different legal threats in the U.S. alone:

  • criminal action from the Department of Justice for "criminal violations of securities laws, bank fraud laws, and wire fraud laws";
  • civil enforcement action, brought "by the Securities Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and by state banking and securities regulators"; and
  • class action lawsuits.

CNBC noted that wire fraud is the most likely criminal charge SBF would face.

With hundreds of thousands of potential victims and billions in losses, Levin suggested the Democrat megadonor could be looking at "potential incarceration for decades" as well as heavy monetary penalties.

Bloomberg first reported — and the Times has confirmed — that the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York began investigating FTX for money laundering prior to its collapse. The focus of the investigation was initially on the company's apparent noncompliance with the Bank Secrecy Act.

The Wall Street Journal reported in November that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating FTX after its sudden implosion.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is reportedly also looking into the circumstances of FTX's bankruptcy.

Bahamas Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Ryan Pinder confirmed late last month that FTX is the focus of an "active and ongoing" investigation by Caribbean authorities. According to Pinder, the "affairs of FTX Digital Markets" are being examined by both "civil and criminal authorities."

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