BlockBeats News, April 18th - According to Reuters, around 20 minutes before the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz was announced by the Iranian Foreign Minister on Friday local time, investors bet approximately $760 million on shorting the oil price. This was another large bet made on the most actively traded global commodity just before a major announcement during the Middle East conflict.

According to LSEG data, between 20:24 and 20:25 on Friday night Beijing time, investors sold a total of 7,990 Brent crude oil futures contracts. Based on the price at that time, these trades were valued at around $760 million. Subsequently, around 20:45, the Iranian Foreign Minister posted that the Strait of Hormuz was fully open to all commercial ships during the remaining ceasefire period, causing the intraday oil price to temporarily drop by up to 11% within minutes.

Over the past few months, several well-timed large trades have raised concerns among U.S. lawmakers and legal experts that decisions regarding war and diplomacy could provide some traders with an advantage in the highly volatile and opaque derivatives market.

Earlier reports suggested that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating a series of crude oil futures trades, including those on March 23rd and April 7th, which took place shortly before significant policy shifts by Trump on the Iran war.