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‘Informed Traders’ May Have Profited From Oct. 7 Massacre With Advance Stock Market Activity, Study Finds
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
Stock traders may have profited massively off the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel by using advance knowledge of the onslaught to short sell Israeli companies in the days leading up to the surprise invasion, according to a new study by US researchers.
The study — titled “Trading on Terror?” — was published in the SSRN journal by Robert J. Jackson, Jr. of the New York University School of Law and Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School. The researchers concluded that traders who apparently had prior knowledge of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks made billions of dollars.
“Informed traders increasingly disguise trades in economically linked securities such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Linking that work to longstanding literature on financial markets’ reactions to military conflict, we document a significant spike in short selling in the principal Israeli-company ETF days before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack,” the study stated. “Our findings suggest that traders informed about the coming attacks profited from these tragic events, and consistent with prior literature we show that trading of this kind occurs in gaps in US and international enforcement of legal prohibitions on informed trading.”
The researchers noted that short selling on Oct. 7 “far exceeded” the short selling that occurred during other recent periods of crisis, such as the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the 2014 Gaza war, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The study added that there was no major rise in short selling before the Israeli government passed controversial judicial reform legislation in July, after which stock prices dropped.
However, “we identify increases in short selling before the [Oct. 7] attack in dozens of Israeli companies traded in Tel Aviv,” the paper said. “For one Israeli company alone, 4.43 million new shares sold short over the Sept. 14 to Oct. 5 period yielded profits (or avoided losses) of 3.2 billion NIS on that additional short selling.”
Short selling is when a trader borrows shares and sells them, hoping the price will then fall so they can buy them back for cheaper.
“Although we see no aggregate increase in shorting of Israeli companies on US exchanges, we do identify a sharp and unusual increase, just before the attacks, in trading in risky short-dated options on these companies expiring just after the attacks,” the study found. “We identify similar patterns in the Israeli ETF at times when it was reported that Hamas was planning to execute a similar attack as in October.”
One of the biggest days of short selling occurred on Oct. 2. Given how “unusual” their findings were, the researchers wrote it was “extremely unlikely that the volume of short selling on Oct. 2 occurred by random chance.”
On Oct. 7, Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas invaded southern Israel from neighboring Gaza and murdered over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the deadliest single-day rampage against Jews since the Holocaust. The terrorists also kidnapped over 240 people as hostages in their brutal onslaught, which launched the current Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The massacre was a shock to Israel and the entire world, raising questions about who would have had advance knowledge of it. Hamas’ top leaders are reportedly billionaires with vast financial assets, although the study did not suggest whether they or anyone else specifically could have tried to profit off the brutal assault in the stock market.
Nonetheless, the researchers concluded the stock market activity leading up to Oct. 7 was likely not a coincidence.
“Taken together, this evidence indicates that the volume of short selling observed over the days immediately prior to the Hamas attack was extraordinarily high and unlikely to have been explained by bona fide market making, because that should have been accompanied by high volumes of purchases to offset those short sales — if not on the same day, certainly very quickly,” the study found. “Otherwise, the market maker would be exposed to directional movements in the stock price.”
The post ‘Informed Traders’ May Have Profited From Oct. 7 Massacre With Advance Stock Market Activity, Study Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.