Is this a mere coincidence? Me thinks not.

[Ohiogal]

Trump Confidant Icahn Dumped Millions in Steel-Related Stock Last Week

Billionaire investor and longtime Trump confidant Carl Icahn dumped $31.3 million of stock in a company heavily dependent on steel last week, just days before Trump announced plans to impose steep tariffs on steel imports.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-ichan-steel-imports-cf7deb8beaf0/

[Atticus]

1. Stinks to high heaven! Lock 'em ALL up, including Trump and Icahn! nt

[Leith]

2. Yet Another Example of a rethug Grabbing All He Can

Before they blow up the world.

[doc03]

3. What about Wilber Ross he made his fortune screwing over steelworkers?

Steel stocks went up yesterday, does he still have an interest in steel?

[triron]

4. Nope

[VOX]

5. The symptoms of Oligarchy smell worse than dead fish on a hot day.

And that’s where the U.S. is headed if allowed to continue on its present course.

[TheSmarterDog]

7. More like Russia every day.

[VOX]

8. Precisely. And its getting worse almost hourly now.

[magicarpet]

21. Banana Republic-an Fascist Oligarchy

[TEB]

6. It smells

Smells worse than a boog crap

[dhol82]

9. But, hey - they got Martha Stewart on this

Question is will they do the same to a man?

[House of Roberts]

22. Actually, they got Martha for lying to the investigators.

She could have told the truth and probably paid a pennies on the dollar fine.

[dhol82]

24. Oh, well

Guess Icahn has more experience in insider trading.

[Honeycombe8]

10. Oh, I see. He dumped a steel-dependent stock.

Got it. Yeah...insider trading. But they won't get him on it. These guys do this all the time. It was probably a personal conversation & not done on the phone or through third-parties, like Martha Stewart.

[JohnnyRingo]

12. You raise a good point

Trump may have even been unwitting.

People pay hundreds of thousands to join Mar-a-lago to rub elbows with Trump. Icahn and others may just make small talk with him on the golf course about things like steel tarriffs and offshore drilling to get inside investment info. He may be too dim to realize what tips he's providing or he fully knows the value of his access, I don't know.

[magicarpet]

25. More like tr-dump dishes out the insider info....

.... that will cause a stock to move drastically. Short the stock or buy a massive quantity just days before the White House releases the stock movement info. The shell buyer acting on the tr-dump stock info shared with them makes a killing off the drastic movement of the stock. Then hands 20% of the gain to Tr-dump for having provided the insider information that allowed the stock profit to be realized.

For tr-dump it would be like his money laundering crime syndicate operation for cleaning dirty money for criminal Russian Oligarchs. Tr-dump has the vehicle to do this, expensive high end real estate transactions.

Buy in with dirty money, a short time later cash out and the sales proceeds realized, now that money is washed clean with that faux real estate transaction. Tr-dump's cut 15% of the purchase price on the way in, then 15% of the sale on the way out. Kind of like a realtor commission for handling the property sale. But in reality it is a money laundering operation.

[Honeycombe8]

27. My guess is it was intentional and part of the good ol' boy way of doing things.

That's how the mega-rich roll. The rules don't apply. They all have insider information, so they pass that along to close friends. All in a day's business. Tit for tat.

This is how some of these guys make at least some of their big bucks, which they like to pass off as "hard work."

[JohnnyRingo]

31. That raises an old conundrum

I often wondered whether Bush was the stupidest president ever or an evil genius. Certainly I've heard credible arguments from both points of view.

Likewise, Trump's aloof persona is one of a failed businessman who could be easily duped for useful information, and there have been convincing examples throughout. Is that the case, or is he a calculating financial savant? I'm not both can share the same three foot necktie.

Having said that, the bottom line is that if a shitload of money falls in someone's lap, it's seldom coincidental.

[Honeycombe8]

34. I have no doubt it was intentional. Trump flaps his jaws to anybody who'll listen...

He gave classified intel to Russians while in the Oval Office, for gosh sakes.

Yak yak yak. So anyone he's close enough to to yak with, will hear everything, even if they don't want to hear it.

I also read some bio about Trump once that explained that Trump hasn't historically had what we call friends. He's a lonely, isolated person. We can all understand why, can't we? So he's unfamiliar with how to act around a "friend," and he likes to be liked. He would tell someone anything to get them to like him and be happy at that moment (tho he might regret it later).

If he were to be tricked...I don't know. He's stupid, but not in a way that he can be easily duped. Because he's so suspicious and paranoid, to begin with.

I think this sort of thing goes on on the golf course all the time. Some guy on the Board of Corp. A, whispers to his billionaire friend on the golf course that BTW, we're going ahead with that purchase of small company B so the stock may rocket high, if you own it already (wink wink).

I can imagine Trump saying, "Carl...if you own any American steel stocks, you're about to get even richer!" That would tell Icahn all he needs to know. American steel is going up....so anything dependent on it will be going down because costs will be going up.

[LanternWaste]

35. He was just plain stupid... he thought supreme court cases were either about religion or gender

He was just plain stupid... he thought many supreme court cases were either about religion or gender, and never realized that both may often exist in the same case.

[JohnnyRingo]

11. When someone accidentally rakes in a windfall...

it's usually no accident.

[3Hotdogs]

13. Not in this case. I heard he needed to sell the stock to pay for his grandkid's

tuition.

[Control-Z]

17. That's some tuition. eom

[Honeycombe8]

28. He probably desperately needed it to put food on the table. nt

[3Hotdogs]

32. Yeah, poor bastard.

[Honeycombe8]

33. LOL. nt

[BigmanPigman]

14. CNN is discussing this "coincidence" right now.

[Ferrets are Cool]

15. Jeebeezus, there are supposed to be laws against this chit. nt

[AwakeAtLast]

26. Just ask Martha Stewart

Funny how a woman goes to prison. These men? Ha!

[Honeycombe8]

29. She made the mistake of getting the info over the phone.

So they could prove it.

I don't know if they investigated because of her purchase, or if the other person's line was bugged.

[FakeNoose]

16. Mueller knows that Cheeto talks to these guys all the time

Cheeto probably talks to Icahn, because he has his regular nightly calls with all the billionaires buddies. I don't know if Mueller can listen in on those calls (probably not) but he can interview them and ask what they discussed. Of course anytime Cheeto tweets anything, it's public domain.

There has to be "insider " info going around all the time. These guys aren't stupid.

[Enoki33]

18. Wonder how much dotards kickback is?

[erronis]

19. Realistically, this is chump change to someone in that wealth level

And, I bet Icahn trades millions of shares of stocks in many sectors/companies every day.

I'm not an investor so I wouldn't know if this particular sale made sense or not. There are lots of factors, most of them probably programmed in the algorithmic trading.

At the same time, everything that dump does is tinged with his business interests. Too bad he's such a poor businessman and had to declare bankruptcy several times.

[TheDemsshouldhireme]

20. 2 Points

1. Welcome to the plutocracy....example #98997
2. But OMG Hillary once made money on a hog future trade

[marble falls]

23. Money has its priv'lige, doancha know. Martha Steward went to prison over an amount ....

of around $500,000.

[arthritisR_US]

30. Insider trading paid and bought through his orange shitgibbon donation.