Citadel’s head of commodities has said Donald Trump’s social media posts during the Iran war have transformed how oil markets behave, leaving traders struggling to adjust to the volatility sparked by the US president’s frequent messages.
Sebastian Barrack, who has helped build Ken Griffin’s hedge fund into one of the world’s most influential energy traders, told the FT Commodities Global Summit that he had a screen solely to monitor the president’s social media posts.
‘Volatility in oil and gas in the first few weeks of the event increased by roughly 300%. It’s an enormous victim of mispricing in terms of the view of how fast and how far the markets would move,’ Barrack said.
Barrack added that previous energy crises had been dominated by traders’ efforts to track ‘physical flows’ but now oil market participants had to monitor a ‘stream of information from social media companies’ including from Trump.
I know the overwhelming sentiment here is “just ignore him, he’s obviously spewing bullshit,” but consider being an individual commodities trader or financial institution. If you ignore it, and everyone else trades on it, and it turns out to actually hold water, what is your defense when you have to a swallow a huge loss because you chose not to participate? It’s a prisoners’ dilemma.
NoSmollFeet on
Well, duh.
I’m glad someone is writing about it outside of Reddit commenters.
Former_Island_4730 on
I was about to whine about the paywall, but this is basically a placed advertisement from u/financialtimes
Super lame. Go away.
rideincircles on
Yup. He’s spewing endless bullshit that moves markets, but is just hiding major problems with lies. I had considered making some moves since it seemed like this could trigger major economic issues, but the market does not reflect that reality and there has been no bottom or direction indicating where things are heading.
Prestigious-Run-5103 on
That’s the whole point. For his obvious pump and dump schtick to work, there’s gotta be suckers and bagholders. If enough band together and ignore the little asshole crying wolf, this would be over tomorrow. The longer they persist, the more times it’ll work, the longer it’ll continue.
6 Comments
Citadel’s head of commodities has said Donald Trump’s social media posts during the Iran war have transformed how oil markets behave, leaving traders struggling to adjust to the volatility sparked by the US president’s frequent messages.
Sebastian Barrack, who has helped build Ken Griffin’s hedge fund into one of the world’s most influential energy traders, told the FT Commodities Global Summit that he had a screen solely to monitor the president’s social media posts.
‘Volatility in oil and gas in the first few weeks of the event increased by roughly 300%. It’s an enormous victim of mispricing in terms of the view of how fast and how far the markets would move,’ Barrack said.
Barrack added that previous energy crises had been dominated by traders’ efforts to track ‘physical flows’ but now oil market participants had to monitor a ‘stream of information from social media companies’ including from Trump.
[**Read more, here**](https://www.ft.com/content/23b14d1b-8efa-4346-ab06-30db101e7748?segmentid=c50c86e4-586b-23ea-1ac1-7601c9c2476f)**.**
I know the overwhelming sentiment here is “just ignore him, he’s obviously spewing bullshit,” but consider being an individual commodities trader or financial institution. If you ignore it, and everyone else trades on it, and it turns out to actually hold water, what is your defense when you have to a swallow a huge loss because you chose not to participate? It’s a prisoners’ dilemma.
Well, duh.
I’m glad someone is writing about it outside of Reddit commenters.
I was about to whine about the paywall, but this is basically a placed advertisement from u/financialtimes
Super lame. Go away.
Yup. He’s spewing endless bullshit that moves markets, but is just hiding major problems with lies. I had considered making some moves since it seemed like this could trigger major economic issues, but the market does not reflect that reality and there has been no bottom or direction indicating where things are heading.
That’s the whole point. For his obvious pump and dump schtick to work, there’s gotta be suckers and bagholders. If enough band together and ignore the little asshole crying wolf, this would be over tomorrow. The longer they persist, the more times it’ll work, the longer it’ll continue.