Episode 19: Insider Trading Before 9/11

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Episode 19: Insider Trading Before 9/11

In the days before September 11th, 2001, the financial markets registered something unusual. Trading volume in put options — financial instruments that profit when a company's stock price falls — on American Airlines and United Airlines, the two carriers whose planes were used in the attacks, spiked to six and four times their normal level respectively. Options on companies with heavy exposure to the World Trade Centre also showed unusual activity. And some of that trading activity was never publicly identified with a known purchaser.

In this episode of The Conspiracy Theory Analyst, we examine the pre-9/11 insider trading theory — one of the most specific, most financially grounded, and most persistently searched 9/11 sub-theories — and ask the question that has never been fully answered to the satisfaction of researchers: did someone with advance knowledge of the attacks profit from them in the financial markets?

We examine what the SEC and the 9/11 Commission investigated, what they found, and what they concluded. The official conclusion was that all suspicious trading could be explained by normal market activity and that no connection to al-Qaeda foreknowledge was established. We examine the specific critics of that conclusion — including academics who have published peer-reviewed analyses of the trading data arguing that the statistical anomalies are too significant to dismiss.

We examine specific trades that attracted attention: the purchases through Deutsche Bank's Alex Brown division, the unusual activity in Raytheon stock, and the $2.5 million in put option profits on airline stocks that was never claimed — the theory being that a foreknowledge trader could not claim profits without revealing themselves.

We also examine what insider trading before a terrorist attack would actually require — who would need to know, when they would need to know, and how that information could reach a trading desk without triggering immediate intelligence alerts.

Keywords: 9/11 insider trading conspiracy, put options before 9/11, who profited from 9/11, 9/11 foreknowledge financial markets, airline stock options September 11, American Airlines United Airlines put options 9/11, did someone know about 9/11 in advance, 9/11 financial conspiracy, unclaimed 9/11 profits, SEC investigation 9/11 trading, 9/11 advance knowledge Wall Street, Deutsche Bank 9/11 conspiracy, 9/11 Commission insider trading, September 11 stock market conspiracy, 9/11 financial evidence foreknowledge

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