‘Hanky-panky?’ Traders pocket ‘stunning’ profits after Trump’s comments on trade talks goose the stock market

In Vanity Fair’s deep dive into “the fantastically profitable mystery of the Trump chaos trades,” William Cohan takes a look at how some timely presidential pumping of the stock market made some futures traders billions of dollars.

One windfall, in particular, triggered Twitter TWTR, -0.75% buzz. On June 28, a trader, or group of traders, snatched up 420,000 September e-minis, which amounted to about 40% of the total trading volume, shortly before the closing bell. Trump the following weekend emerged from a meeting with President Xi to say the trade...