The War Trade
- Opened on fileSixteen minutes
The 2026 Iran war was run from Mar-a-Lago and is being traded around in the president's own accounts, in oil futures minutes before his posts and in prediction markets hours before the bombs, with one CFTC probe open and one teleprompter operator penalised. Australia's richest person moved into the same defence names while the Commonwealth booked an A$38 billion war windfall and dropped the levy on it; the one inquiry that looked reached no majority position, and Parliament spent its energy instead on a five-dollar golf membership.
Fig. 02 / What happened
Fig. 03 / Who the record names
How we know
The exhibits sit beside the title above, each tied to the article that documented it. How evidence and sources are graded: evidence grade, source tiers.
What else is connected
Named in this case and in others. A count of where the record names them, not a finding about what they did.
From the desk
- Watch: Hancock Prospecting’s September-quarter 13F is dueThe Australian position · The War TradeThe War Trade
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Check whether Hancock Prospecting’s Form 13F for the quarter ended 30 September 2026 confirms the defence, gold and energy weighting seen in the March and June 2026 filings, and whether the SpaceX and Trump Media stakes grew further. The date is the SEC’s own 45-day filing deadline after the close of the quarter, not a date drawn from any Hancock or government statement.
- Article updatedNinety-seven per cent · The War Trade
The ceasefire announcement is now marked as the evening of 7 April 2026 in Washington, which was the morning of 8 April in Australia, so that this date matches the Australian market dates in this case’s fourth article. Reference has been added for the timing of the announcement. No fact has changed.
- Correction publishedThe round trip · The War Trade
This section said President Trump announced the ceasefire on 8 April 2026. He announced it on the evening of 7 April in Washington, as this case’s first two articles record; that was the morning of 8 April in Australia, and 8 April was the first Australian session to trade on it, the day of the Woodside and Santos falls. The text and table now say so, and reference has been added for the timing…
- Record: article 1 corrected, 7 October 2026Sixteen minutes · The War TradeThe War Trade · one passage removed, 7 October 2026
A passage here set out a Financial Times report of 30 March 2026, relayed by Al Jazeera, about the defence secretary, with the Pentagon’s reply and the letters it drew from members of Congress. The report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. Under this station’s method an adverse claim…
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UPDATED 7 October 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 1 of five, Sixteen minutes).
ARTICLE CHANGES. One passage removed, from the section formerly headed “The defence secretary, and the only man who paid”, now headed “The only man who paid”. The passage set out a Financial Times report of 30 March 2026, relayed by Al Jazeera, about the defence secretary, with the Pentagon’s reply and the letters it drew from members of Congress. The report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. The station’s method is that no adverse claim about a named person or organisation rests on an anonymous source alone, so the passage is cut and its removal is recorded here. A dated correction stands where the passage was. The mentions of the same report in the standfirst, the introduction, the table of contents, the image and its description, and the record of 10 September were removed or amended to match; the sentence on the first night that named the defence secretary is removed, and his name is taken out of the sentences that say no finding of insider trading has been made, in the article and in the record of 10 September; and references 20 to 23 are withdrawn, their numbers left in place. The same report was also removed from article 3, “The Australian position”, and from the case file and the entity page for the defence secretary; the entity page, which carried no other entry, is removed. No other figure in the article changed.
STILL OPEN: what became of the CFTC’s investigation reported on 15 April 2026, and whether the SEC acts on Truth API, as set out in the record of 10 September 2026.
NEXT DATE: none is fixed by any document read for this correction.
- Record: article 3 corrected, 7 October 2026The Australian position · The War TradeThe War Trade · one column removed, 7 October 2026
This section previously carried a fourth column, headed “Defence fund”, and sentences linking the table to a report about the defence secretary that article 1 of this case has removed (see its correction of the same date). That report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. Under this…
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CORRECTED 7 October 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 3 of five).
ARTICLE CHANGES. The table in the section “The same names” first carried a fourth column, headed “Defence fund”, and the introduction, the section’s opening paragraph, the note under the table, the diagram and its description referred to a report about the defence secretary that article 1 of this case has removed (see its record of 7 October 2026). That report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. The station’s method is that no adverse claim about a named person or organisation rests on an anonymous source alone, so the column and the sentences that relied on it are cut and the removal is recorded here. A dated correction stands under the table. Reference 10 is withdrawn, its number left in place. The 10 September record is amended to match. No other figure in the article changed.
STILL OPEN: nothing new; the items in the 10 September record stand.
NEXT DATE: 14 November 2026, Hancock’s September-quarter 13F deadline.
- Record: article 3 corrected, 29 September 2026The Australian position · The War TradeThe War Trade · corrected 29 September 2026
This article gave the cost of the fuel excise cut as A$2.5 billion, in the subtitle, the introduction, the fact box, the table, the key facts, the diagram and its description, the note on reference, and the 10 September desk record. That figure was a press report’s, and this desk could not trace it to a source, so it has been replaced throughout with the A$2.9 billion at which the 12 May 2026…
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CORRECTED 29 September 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 3 of five).
ARTICLE CHANGES. The cost of the fuel excise cut had been given as A$2.5 billion, a figure this desk could not trace to a source. It is replaced, in the subtitle, introduction, fact box, table, key facts, diagram and its description, and in the note on reference [13], with the A$2.9 billion at which the 12 May 2026 Budget costed the enlarged package. The 10 September record’s figure is corrected to match. A Correction paragraph in the text records the change.
STILL OPEN: nothing new; the items in the 10 September record stand.
NEXT DATE: 14 November 2026, Hancock’s September-quarter 13F deadline.
- Record: article 5 updated, 29 September 2026Five dollars · The War TradeThe War Trade · corrected 29 September 2026
This article said the windfall levy “was killed off in the 10 May budget”. The 2026-27 Budget was delivered on 12 May 2026; 10 May is the date of the ABC report, and “killed off” is that reporter's characterisation (the ABC reported the Prime Minister “killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel”), not a government statement. It also said…
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UPDATED 29 September 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 5 of five).
ARTICLE CHANGES. The Budget date is corrected to 12 May 2026 (10 May is the date of the ABC report that the windfall levy the government had asked Treasury to model was killed off, the reporter's characterisation, not a government statement); the Prime Minister's gas export tax remark was reported by SBS on 14 May, two days after the Budget, not four days after it. The A$38 billion is corrected from a sum "booked" by the Commonwealth to a forecast lift in export earnings (revenue, not profit or tax) that Bloomberg reported the department expects, in the subtitle, lede, scale table, key facts, body, image alt text and diagram. The department's own June 2026 Resources and Energy Quarterly figures are added: a A$42 billion upgrade to 2026-27 resource and energy export earnings on its December 2025 figure, driven by Middle East energy prices and gold, A$20 billion of it in liquefied natural gas. The government's stated reasons are added: the Treasurer's fuel supply and gas reservation (ABC, 10 May), and the Prime Minister's 29 April remark about jeopardising partnerships.
The A$38 billion is checked against the department's own June 2026 Resources and Energy Quarterly: it is consistent with the scenario of disruption to the end of June (nearly A$8 billion in 2025-26 and A$30 billion in 2026-27), a gross figure that does not net off dearer imported fuel; this is THE RORT's arithmetic, not a statement in the Bloomberg report.
STILL OPEN. Whether the Bloomberg figure was drawn from that scenario has not been confirmed.
NEXT DATE: none fixed.
- Record: THE WAR TRADE adds the prediction-market ledger, where a nonpartisan count put the win rate at 97 per centNinety-seven per cent · The War TradeThe War Trade · attended 10 September 2026
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ATTENDED 10 September 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 2 of five).
FINDING. On Polymarket, a prediction market where users bet real money on yes-or-no questions about the future, at least fifty brand-new accounts bet that the United States and Iran would reach a ceasefire in the hours and minutes before the 7 April announcement, several of them making that single bet and nothing else. One wallet had existed for twelve minutes when it placed its bet. A nonpartisan research group, the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, later counted 152 accounts that had profited about US$8 million on the war markets with a 97 per cent win rate, and a Polymarket official told CNN the company had already referred dozens of accounts showing signs of possible military insider trading to the Justice Department. Two members of Congress wrote to regulators and to the company; the only financial penalty imposed anywhere over trading tied to the president's own words fell in a different prediction market, on a teleprompter operator. No court or regulator has found that any Polymarket account holder traded on inside information, and this article does not go past that record.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Article 2, “Ninety-seven per cent”, published, covering the prediction-market record: the ceasefire bets, the twelve-minute account, the 97 per cent count, the referrals to the Justice Department, and the letters from Congress. The case now carries five published articles.
STILL OPEN: what the Justice Department does with the accounts Polymarket referred; whether the Commodity Futures Trading Commission acts on either congressional letter; and whether any account behind the winning ceasefire bets is ever identified.
NEXT DATE: none is fixed by any document read for this article. Watch for the next public step in the Justice Department referral and in the CFTC review requested by Representative Torres and Senator Blumenthal.
- Record: THE WAR TRADE follows the war up and down the Australian share marketThe round trip · The War TradeThe War Trade · attended 10 September 2026
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ATTENDED 10 September 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 4 of five).
FINDING. The 2026 Iran war moved through the Australian share market twice, in opposite directions. On 2 March, the first session after the 28 February strike closed the Strait of Hormuz, Santos rose 7.8 per cent and Woodside 7.7 per cent; on 8 April, on the ceasefire, Woodside fell 11.4 per cent and Santos 5 per cent, giving back every cent of six weeks of war gains. Over the same weeks two Australian counter-drone manufacturers rose on escalation: DroneShield gained 19.4 per cent on the day Iran rejected a US ceasefire proposal, and Electro Optic Systems rose on US$45 million of new counter-drone orders, one of them a Slinger weapon for a Middle East customer. Every one of these is a lawful, disclosed price movement on a public exchange, under no inquiry, and this article makes no accusation. It records the round trip the war made through the market, and the fact that the moves large enough to matter were examined by no one, because ordinary trading on public news is not examined by anyone.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Article 4, “The round trip”, published, covering the Australian-markets record: the energy names up on the war and down on the ceasefire, and the defence names up on the fighting. The case carries five published articles.
STILL OPEN: nothing to resolve here; these are settled, disclosed market moves. The open questions in this case sit in the US oil futures probe and the Australian gas windfall, taken up in articles one, three and five.
NEXT DATE: none. This article is a closed record of price movements between 2 March and 8 April 2026.
- Record: THE WAR TRADE opened as a case; three measurements of one sixteen-minute window are not three trades to be added togetherSixteen minutes · The War TradeThe War Trade · attended 10 September 2026
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ATTENDED 10 September 2026 (case opened: THE WAR TRADE, article 1 of five).
FINDING. Since the United States and Israel struck Iran on 28 February 2026, a dated record has built up around trading tied to the war: US$529 million on Polymarket contracts on the strike’s timing; a sequence of disclosed trades in accounts bearing Donald Trump’s own name across oil, gas, gold and defence stocks; a sixteen-minute window on 23 March between 6:49 a.m. and 7:05 a.m. New York time in which futures volume spiked and Trump then posted that strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would pause; a set of oil-futures bets on falling prices around the ceasefire, later found by regulators to be at least four trades worth more than US$2.6 billion; a report about the US defence secretary, since removed from the article (corrected 7 October 2026: see the record of that date); and a paid data product, Truth API, selling faster access to the president’s own posts. Reuters reported on 15 April 2026 that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was investigating oil futures trades around the 23 March and 7 April dates; by 7 May the Justice Department had joined it, the two examining at least four trades worth more than US$2.6 billion, the Justice Department side led by the Southern District of New York, with three firms named in reporting on the 23 March trades and all three denying knowledge of any investigation. The only financial penalty any regulator has imposed over trading connected to this record fell on Gabriel Perez, a former White House teleprompter operator, fined and banned on 28 August 2026 for betting on Trump’s own speeches on Kalshi. Separately, the president’s 2025 financial disclosure reports more than US$1.4 billion in crypto income, its largest lines memecoin royalties and World Liberty Financial token sales, from a business whose value moves with the same office. No court, regulator or congressional committee has found that Trump or anyone in his circle traded on inside information (corrected 7 October 2026: a name was removed from this sentence; see the record of that date); this article states that plainly and does not go further than the record does.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Case opened. Article 1, “Sixteen minutes”, published, covering the US record: the trades, the sixteen minutes, the four-trade US$2.6 billion probe, the only penalty, and the family’s crypto income. The case now carries five published articles.
STILL OPEN: what became of the CFTC’s investigation reported on 15 April 2026; whether the SEC acts on Truth API; and how the same pattern reads against Australian markets and Australian office-holders, which the next four articles in this case take up.
NEXT DATE: none is fixed by any document read for this article. Watch for the next public step in the joint Justice Department and CFTC investigation reported through 7 May 2026, and for the four articles that follow this one in the case.
- Record: THE WAR TRADE opens article 3, the Australian ledger read against Hancock Prospecting’s filingsThe Australian position · The War TradeThe War Trade · attended 10 September 2026
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ATTENDED 10 September 2026 (case: THE WAR TRADE, article 3 of five).
FINDING. Hancock Prospecting’s quarterly US filings show a shift toward American defence and gold holdings that began within the Iran war’s first month and grew through its second quarter, alongside a private role in Australian politics that funnelled aircraft, cash and access into One Nation. Over the same months the Commonwealth of Australia’s own accounts logged a forecast A$38 billion war-driven export windfall, considered and then dropped a levy that might have captured part of it, and paid instead for a fuel excise cut that the Budget costed, as an enlarged package, at A$2.9 billion. Both ledgers are lawful and disclosed: Hancock’s trades under US securities law, the government’s decisions in public statements and a budget. A table joining the company names common to Rinehart’s filings and the president’s own disclosed trades is this desk’s own assembly of separate public records (corrected 7 October 2026: the table first carried a fourth column, since removed; see the record of that date); no source connects the purchases to one another.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Article 3, “The Australian position”, published. The case now carries five published articles.
STILL OPEN: the September-quarter 13F Hancock has yet to file; whether the Senate committee that examined the gas levy revisits it once the war ends, a step it recommended without a date attached; and any documented contact, of which none is presently known, between Rinehart and the other named subjects of this case.
NEXT DATE: Hancock’s next 13F is due under SEC rules within 45 days of the close of the September quarter, so by 14 November 2026 at the latest.
- Record: THE WAR TRADE weighs a five-dollar membership against a forecast A$38 billion export liftFive dollars · The War TradeThe War Trade · recorded 10 September 2026
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RECORDED 10 September 2026 (corrected 29 September 2026), at the close of a sitting week in which the Parliament of Australia spent two days on a five-dollar golf club membership held by the Prime Minister and never declared. That membership, and the invitation-only fund behind it, are documented in this masthead's separate case, THE PORK BARREL. This article records the other half of the same week: what the same Parliament did not examine.
FINDING. In the same fortnight, nothing in Australia examined the forecast A$38 billion lift in export earnings (revenue, not profit or tax) that Bloomberg reported the government's own department expects from the war. The Senate Select Committee into the taxation of Australia's gas resources had tabled its report on 7 May 2026 without a majority position on reform; a cross-party recommendation to revisit the question once the Middle East conflict concluded carries no date. The windfall levy the government had asked Treasury to model in March was dropped by May, as the ABC reported on 10 May; the Treasurer cited fuel supply and gas reservation. The single open inquiry into any figure on this case's scale is American, at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission; none of it runs through Canberra. Hancock Prospecting's trades are lawful, disclosed and under no inquiry anywhere, and this case makes no accusation against the filer.
STILL OPEN: whether the Senate committee that recommended revisiting Australia's gas windfall question once the conflict ends is ever reconvened; whether the CFTC's investigation into the oil futures trades produces a finding; whether any Australian body examines the war windfall at all.
NEXT DATE: none fixed by any document read for this case.