At 06:49 a.m. ET on Monday, March 23 this year, around 3,000 West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures contracts were traded on NYMEX, an unusually high number for that time of day. What made the trades more unusual was that 15 minutes later President Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held a conversation about a complete and total resolution of hostilities. Oil prices fell sharply following the announcement.
To any compliance team reviewing trading activity, the size of the trade and timing of the profit would have looked suspicious. But without configurable models embedded within a surveillance tool, it would have been hard to catch.
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