<\/p>\n
It is the third \u200ctime this month, and the fourth in total, that large, well-timed directional bets on the oil price have been made shortly before major announcements on the Iran war. One combined wager in \u200bMarch was worth $500 million, while April’s bets have together totalled some $2.1 billion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Between 21h54 \u200band 21h56 CAT on Tuesday, 4 260 lots of selling hit the oil \u2060market, worth a combined $430 million, based on the prevailing Brent futures price, according \u200bto London Stock Exchange Group data. Trump said he would extend the ceasefire indefinitely at 22h10 CAT.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Brent \u200bmarket settles at 20h30 CAT, meaning these trades took place in what is known as post-settlement hours, when volumes are usually extremely limited.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The trades did not have much impact on the price, which \u200bedged down to $100.66 a barrel, from $100.91 before they took place. After Trump’s announcement, Brent \u200bcrude futures fell to a low of $96.83 in the minute that followed. They were last trading at $99.2 \u200ca \u2060barrel at 14h00 CAT on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On March 23, 15 minutes before Trump announced a delay to threatened attacks on Iranian power infrastructure, anonymous traders placed $500 million on a drop in the oil price. Similarly, on April 7, bets worth $950 million went through just \u200bhours before Trump’s announcement \u200bof a two-week ceasefire.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On \u2060April 17, some 20 minutes prior to the Iranian Foreign Minister posting on social media that the Strait of Hormuz would \u200bbe open to commercial shipping, traders placed $760 million in bets on \u200ba falling \u2060oil price.<\/p>\n
The US is investigating a series of oil futures trades, including those on March 23 and April 7, that were placed shortly before major policy shifts \u2060by \u200bTrump related to the war in Iran, a person \u200bfamiliar with the matter said on April 15.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Spokesperson for the Intercontinental Exchange declined to \u200bcomment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":32762,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-32760","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Traders placed a series of bets worth $430 million on a drop in crude prices just 15 minutes before United States (US) President Donald Trump \u200bsaid he would extend a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday.","published_date":"","news_description":"Traders placed a series of bets worth $430 million on a drop in crude prices just 15 minutes before United States (US) President Donald Trump \u200bsaid he would extend a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32763,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32760\/revisions\/32763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}