This Week's Big News: Trump Manipulates the Market + US-Iran Tensions Escalate, 15-Minute "God-Level Short" Sparks Insider Investigation

BlockBeats News, April 25 — Macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have become the core drivers of the market this week. The ongoing U.S.-Iran game continues to influence oil prices and global risk assets, with the Strait of Hormuz blockade unresolved and negotiations shifting toward a “total ceasefire,” boosting risk aversion sentiment and driving fluctuations in the dollar and oil prices.

On the market front, Trump’s influence over the trend has significantly strengthened. Data shows that nearly all of the largest daily gains and losses in U.S. stocks during his second term have been policy-driven, with traders betting around his “erratic” policy rhythm, making market pricing logic distinctly “Trump-like.”

More notably, the oil market has seen multiple precise “front-running” trades: within 15 minutes before a ceasefire or policy shift, hundreds of millions of dollars in short positions appeared and successfully bet on a crash, totaling approximately $2.6 billion over a month, triggering investigations by U.S. regulators into insider trading.

In terms of monetary policy, the U.S. Department of Justice suddenly dropped its investigation into Powell, clearing the way for Waller to succeed as Federal Reserve Chair; during a hearing, he emphasized he would not become a “rate cut tool,” but advocated for pushing structural reforms.

Asset performance has shown clear divergence: oil prices surged on supply shocks, gold and silver came under pressure and declined; U.S. stocks hit new highs amid volatility, with increasing structural differentiation; the yen depreciated close to intervention levels.

Other significant developments include: Tesla raising capital expenditure to $25 billion to bet on AI and robotics; DeepSeek releasing the V4 model and reports that Tencent and Alibaba plan to invest at a valuation exceeding $20 billion; OpenAI launching GPT-5.5 to accelerate commercialization.

Overall, with geopolitical conflicts and policy uncertainties stacking up, the market has entered a high-volatility normal, with trading logic shifting from “macro data-driven” to “event and power-driven.”