Trump’s 3,700+ trades stun Wall Street insiders

Key topics:Trump disclosed 3,700+ trades worth tens of millionsCritics raise conflict concerns over White House tiesMajor tech and AI-linked firms featured in trades.By Bill Allison and Jessica Menton.President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he or his investment advisers made more than 3,700 trades in the first quarter, a flurry totaling tens of millions of dollars and involving major companies that have dealings with his administration. The transactions, spelled out in more than 100 pages of documents filed Thursday with the US Office of Government Ethics, list purchases and sales in broad ranges, making it hard to calculate an exact value. But the volume of trading — more than 40 per day over a three-month period — stands out as much as the potential dollar value. “This is an insane amount of trades,” said Matthew Tuttle, chief executive officer of Tuttle Capital Management, in an interview, adding that it looks more like something done by “a hedge fund with massive algo trades” that buys and shorts securities than a personal account..Read more:.Ruchir Sharma: How America's retail investors came to rule Wall Street.In the first quarter, the president bought at least $1 million each in companies including Nvidia Corp., Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp., Boeing Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp., according to the documents. Other trades involved eBay Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Uber Technologies Inc., AT&T Inc. and discount store Dollar Tree Inc. .The disclosure reignites conflict-of-interest concerns that have shadowed Trump’s terms in the White House. Critics have regularly accused him of mixing his official duties with his business interests. Unlike his predecessors, Trump didn’t divest or move his assets into a blind trust with an independent overseer. His sprawling business empire is managed by two of his sons and operates in several areas that intersect with presidential policy. At the same time, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner helps manage billions in investments for Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates while simultaneously serving as a “volunteer” envoy for the president on issues affecting the war in Iran and the Middle East in general. The White House dismissed questions about potential conflicts, with spokesman David Ingle saying that Trump “only acts in the best interests of the American public.” He added: “There are no conflicts of interest.” A spokesperson for the Trump Organization earlier said that the president’s holdings are independently managed by third-party financial institutions who have control over all investment decisions, with trades executed through automated processes. Trump, his family members and his company play no role in making transactions, the spokesperson said. They receive no advance notice of trading activity and provide no input, she added.The trading volume exceeds anything Trump has previously reported. In the fourth quarter of last year, he made 380 transactions, mostly purchases of municipal debt, though he also bought some commercial paper, according to his filings.He made his first disclosure of asset purchases in August, reporting 690 transactions he had made starting on Jan. 21, 2025, the day after the start of his second term. Those transactions, covering about seven months, totaled at least $103.7 million.‘Baffled’The president’s disclosures spurred questions from some on Wall Street who expressed surprise at the trading volume.“I’m baffled,” said Eric Diton, president and managing director at The Wealth Alliance. “In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards.”“We’d need to see the actual trades to try and understand why anyone would want to do that much trading,” Diton added.Adam Sarhan, founder of 50 Park Investments, said the frequency of trading was “tremendous.”“What I really want to know is at the end of all those trades was the account positive or negative?” Sarhan said.Trump has made a number of policy moves that affect the publicly listed companies he traded, and he interacts regularly with many of the executives of those firms. That includes Nvidia, whose chips, critical to AI development, require US government approval for foreign sales. Trump pulled Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang into his recent trip to Beijing during a refueling stop, joining a delegation that included top executives from Boeing, Citigroup Inc. and Tesla Inc. as well as other major companies. .Read more:.The Economist: Why Wall Street won’t see the next crash coming.Six of Trump’s trades involved Intel Corp.; his administration hammered out an agreement to take a 10% stake for nearly $9 billion in the iconic chipmaker in August. Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company gained 20% in the first quarter and more than doubled in April after delivering a sales forecast that shattered Wall Street expectations. .Trump’s comments haven’t always benefited the companies whose assets he trades. While in Beijing, his announcement that China would purchase 200 Boeing jets pushed shares down because the order was expected to be larger. Netflix Inc. and Paramount Skydance Corp. battled to acquire Warner Bros Discovery Inc. in a months-long fight with both suitors raising potential antitrust concerns. Trump made investments related to all three companies. He bought a modest stake in Warner Bros. in March, worth at least $30,000, a stake in Paramount Skydance worth at least $15,000 the same month. He also had 19 transactions naming Netflix, including sales worth as little as $1,000 and as much as $5 million during the first quarter.‘Huge Question Mark’ “All of this raises questions that you’d rather not raise as a president,” said Tuttle. “So now people are asking why is he buying Nvidia and other companies now? When you’re the president you know everything, so any stock you buy, there’s a huge question mark.”Previous presidents divested assets or took other steps to avoid conflicts of interest or even the appearance of ethical issues while in office. George H.W. Bush had a blind trust that held his investments both while he served as vice president and when he became president himself in 1989. His successor, Bill Clinton, did the same after assuming office.Federal law only required officeholders to report transactions involving securities after the passage of the STOCK Act in 2012, which strengthened disclosure requirements for executive branch officials and members of Congress. Neither former President Barack Obama, whose money was invested in Treasury bills and broadly diversified mutual funds, nor Joe Biden traded stocks or bonds while in office. Trump is the first president who triggered the disclosure requirement.$200 FineTrump’s biggest sales came on Feb. 10, when he unloaded holdings in three technology firms: Microsoft, Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., in amounts between $5 million and $25 million.The tech giants’ performance has been mixed since then: Shares of Meta Platforms have lost almost 10% while Amazon shares have added some 30% following the stock’s best run for April since 2007. Microsoft shares have traded flat. .Federal ethics laws require officials to report trades no later than 45 days after they’re made. Both of Trump’s filings missed that deadline but the penalty in the law is nominal: a $200 fine for each late disclosure. Trump’s filings indicate he paid the fee on both..Read more:.Why Wall Street’s tariff pessimism may be overblown: Jonathan Levin.Trump has dismissed critics who have accused him of taking financial advantage of being the US president. In a January interview with the New York Times, Trump said he didn’t get any credit for reining in his business interests in his first term. “I got nothing but criticized,” Trump said. In a separate matter, the government ethics office granted Trump a 45-day extension to file his annual financial disclosure. That document provides information on the value and income earned in 2025 from his sprawling business empire, which includes crypto, resorts, golf courses and his social media company. The extension are routinely granted when requested. The disclosures, originally supposed to be filed Friday, are now due on June 29..© 2026 Bloomberg L.P..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Trump’s 3,700+ trades stun Wall Street insiders

Key topics:

Related Stories

Ruchir Sharma: How America's retail investors came to rule Wall Street

Donald Trump signals strong momentum toward US-Iran ceasefire deal

BNC#8: Anthony Ginsberg - “AI, tech and a $10trn shift most investors are missing”

BN Daybreak: Fri 27 Mar - Middle East troop surge; ANC support slips in by-elections; Record Wall Street payouts