Investment Firm Denies Shorting Trump Media Stock Day Before Assassination Attempt
Investment firm Austin Private Wealth LLC has denied claims that it placed a massive put option on Trump Media & Technology Group stock the day before the assassination attempt, asserting that the filing was a “clerical error”.
In stock market terms, a put option is basically a bet that the asset’s price will fall, which would have almost certainly occurred if Trump had been killed.
As writer and researcher Josh Walkos highlighted, it appeared as though the firm had “shorted 12,000,000 shares of $DJT via a put option. The filing date is July 12th, the day before the assassination attempt.”
“They have around $1 Billion in assets under management and this is by far the largest put placed,” wrote Walkos.
A Bloomberg terminal screenshot showed that the contract subsequently disappeared from the record.
The company then amended their filing records on July 16th and the put option was removed.
“Another interesting thing about the amendment filed on 7/16 is that it is the only one they have ever had. I searched and their first filing was on 2-12-2020,” wrote Walkos.
Kyler Becker also noted that “Vanguard (Soros) and BlackRock are among the largest holders in Austin Private Wealth LLC.”
Jason Goodman then called AJ Wagner, a partner in the firm, to ask him about the controversy, noting that it was a “remarkable coincidence.”
Wagner asserted that the explanation was a “clerical error in the filing” and said the company would be issuing a statement.
Austin Private Wealth then issued the following statement yesterday.
“The SEC filing which showed that Austin Private Wealth shorted a large number of shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (DJT) was incorrect and we immediately amended it as soon as we learned of the error.”
“No client of APW holds, or has ever held, a put on DJT in the quantity initially reported. The correct holding amount was 12 contracts, or 1,200 shares— not 12 million shares, as was filed in error. In submitting the required report for the second quarter of 2024, a multiplier was applied by a third-party vendor that increased the number of the shares by a multiple of 10,000 for all options contracts (not just DJT). We did not catch the error before approving the filing. We filed the report on July 12 to reflect our positions on June 28. We amended it on July 16.”
“We deeply regret this error and the concern it has caused, especially at such a fraught moment for our nation. We are committed to full transparency and maintaining the trust of our clients. As such, we are reviewing our internal procedures and our processes with the third-party vendor that assists with SEC filings to better understand how this happened and avoid similar issues moving forward.”
In the five days following the failed assassination attempt, shares in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (DJT) have risen by 25 per cent.
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