Even before New York AG Tish James launched her insider-trading inquiry into whether Trump cronies got tips to buy stocks before the president’s tariff “pause,” Wall Street veterans flagged fishy tariff-related trades tied to Apple, On The Money has learned.
These involved some suspicious buying of beaten-down Apple shares after the markets opened last Friday. The trades in question predated by hours the White House’s surprise tariff exemption on smartphones, an announcement that would bolster the sagging fortunes of the big tech company and its stock, which had been getting hammered over its China ties since the Trump trade war began.
Suddenly with the carve out, a $3,500 iPhone appeared off the table. Billions in lost market capitalization in earnings models could be restored. Apple wouldn’t have to move all its factories from places like China back to the US to avoid the levies. Its stock was a screaming buy.
And as it turns out, some really prescient Wall Street types appeared to see the future and bought Apple shares right before the exemption announcement came out after the bell that Friday night; Apple shares that day rose 6.5% on no apparent news. When markets reopened the following Monday, Apple’s stock soared, meaning the timing of the trades was, as the kids say, a little sus.
At least that’s what trading sources have been telling me, namely that those Apple trades are ripe for an insider trading case, and maybe some indictments. Trading on material nonpublic information is a crime. People have gone to jail over it.
Maybe, or maybe not. True, insider trading involves stealing nonpublic information that rightly belongs to public shareholders, then trading on it for personal gain. But there’s a lot of room between a weird looking trade and an insider trading case, because the law, such as it is, is pretty nebulous.
That’s because there is no clearly defined piece of legislation that outlines what insider trading is or isn’t, just a bunch of court precedents, which means fitting that definition into a case is complex. It involves more than just trading on stuff that hasn’t been made public because most insider trading involves intermediaries, someone who hears something from the CEO or a corporate executive and then passes it along to someone who does the trading. To prove information theft, these parties need to have a financial relationship or there’s no case.
Casual conversations involving stock tips don’t apply. On top of it all, most of these insider trading cases involve corporate executives or insiders stealing information about a company’s internal operations that can move stocks, not the machinations of government. Yes, there is a law preventing members of Congress from trading on nonpublic information they get from briefings.
But when was the last time you saw one of them go to jail for doing so? The answer: Never. The reason: Those fuzzy court precedents don’t cover government officials.
Plus, I did a little research on what was bouncing around the markets just before the so-called Apple exemption announcement came out of left field and the alleged dirty trades went down. That same day, a Federal Reserve governor was quoted saying that the nation’s central bank would stabilize markets if they continued to implode. Fed intervention is always a positive for stocks. That could also have accounted for the buying of Apple and other tech names that afternoon.
James’s semi-investigation of Trump (she says she’s just kicking the tires for now) faces similar hurdles. She’s investigating whether Trump may have tipped off friends and family before announcing his April 9 “pause” on tariffs (except on Chinese goods) that took the Dow up close to 3,000 points.
The NY AG, it should be noted, has been trying to nail Trump on something for years, she even campaigned on it, so she’s not a neutral source.
This week, Trump punched back, sending a criminal referral on James for some shady-looking mortgage applications she filled out.
Given her biases, you can understand why she might have overlooked some exculpatory evidence, like Trump’s urging Americans to buy the market well before the pause announcement and just before the open on April 9, stating on Truth Social it was a “GREAT TIME TO BUY.”
He wrote that in all caps, presumably because he really believed it. Anyone who bought at the open would have made nearly as much money as anyone he allegedly tipped off, which means no one got screwed, so there’s probably no case.
Bottom line: If insider trading was so easy to prove, more than a few lawmakers and many more Wall Street traders would be in jail.
Meanwhile, it would be nice if Tish James could explain to us all those wonky mortgage applications she filled out.
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