from Hacker News

Spike in short selling in Israeli-company ETF days before Oct 7 [pdf]

by tecc501 on 12/4/23, 3:01 PM with 76 comments

• by nolongerthere on 12/4/23, 3:56 PM

  Considering Qatar (and thus by proxy Hamas and Iran) has access to global markets it’s not clear to me why the assumption here is that these moves came from Israeli leadership and not the more likely source… those planning the slaughter who also wanted to benefit economically and not just in blood.

• by typon on 12/4/23, 3:31 PM

  The Egyptian intelligence services repeatedly warned of an incoming attack and the Israelis ignored the warnings. Maybe the information was kicked up by the traders?

  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67082047.amp

• by Frummy on 12/4/23, 3:54 PM

  Makes me think of when in a trading context I was advised that Russia had moved soldiers close to the borders of Ukraine, some other customers had taken highly leveraged trading positions, and a while later that invasion began, and all the second order effects in the market took place. I don't trade anymore. Curious how some individuals through profit incentive anticipate world events with more agility and foresight than the institutions that lead us

• by yieldcrv on 12/4/23, 3:26 PM

  so, when this happened on 9/11 the actual investigation found a stock picking newsletter that had simply called the stock sector for technical analysis reasons

  this paper only compares volume to prior campaigns in Israel, and draws a conclusions based on that

  additionally it has the bias of saying these are “gaps in enforcement of insider trading laws”, seemingly not understanding that an insider trading law would not cover things occurring outside of a company. nor should it.

  its short selling of an ETF over a geopolitical event

  so its just as likely any random stock picking newsletter could have called it. there’s even a guy on reddit that says Gaza attacks are based on the moon phase and tried to warn Israel, he happened to be not-inaccurate this time but its totally based on correlations only

• by ninja3925 on 12/4/23, 3:27 PM

  For anybody close to the topic and knowing how shocked the Israeli society was on Oct 7th, this paper makes a very strong claim that needs more than just circumstantial evidence (higher short trades). Like any circumstantial evidence, many reasons could trigger unusual trading patterns

• by throwaway290 on 12/4/23, 3:39 PM

  In case the title confuses someone like me.

  The paper suggests that people who knew about the October attacks (so probably not Israelis, we can have a few guesses who) were short selling Israeli companies, as well as index funds based on Israeli companies, just in time. This happened both on US markets and elsewhere. So that while blood was being spilled they lined their pockets. It'd be interesting but I guess impossible to see how much it is later converted to crypto and reinvested into terrorism and how much is just blood profits that get reinvested.

  The paper obviously can't tell who is trading and why, so it's not a positive proof, but it'd be interesting to see if money could be followed. Looks like they did a lot of work to eliminate any false signals.

  I wish their typography was more readable, that line height is a major pain to read and why is it a PDF for crying out loud.

• by gizajob on 12/4/23, 3:57 PM

  Ha why is this being flagged?? Evidence of conspiracy flagged as conspiracy.

• by gjsman-1000 on 12/4/23, 3:31 PM

  There's a new "conspiracy theory" on the block to explain this and other events (I do admittedly find it plausible):

  It's not like Israel has been, or is, a friend of Gaza. So when Gaza was planning the attack, either Israel's previously famous intelligence service was caught completely off guard (despite the warning by Egypt) - or they let it happen, intentionally, as an excuse to raid Gaza as well as improve the popularity of their struggling president.

  Thoughts?

  (Edit: For those questioning how this would improve the prime minister's or president's approval, few things improve the popularity of a president, or a prime minister, than a declaration of war following a catastrophic event. Bush reached 86% popular support after 9/11.)

• by borissk on 12/4/23, 3:31 PM

  IMHO there's a good chance that Bibi and his friends were warned about the incoming big Hamas attack by Mossad and/or other Israeli agencies. Would Bibi act to prevent it or use it to stay in power and potentially get rid of the Palestinians in Gaza?

• by Invictus0 on 12/4/23, 3:27 PM

  From what I've read, even Hamas' own leaders were unaware of the Oct 7 attack planning. Maybe the Israeli equivalent of the SEC can figure out who placed these trades.