President Trump bought hundreds of stocks the day before he paused tariffs and caused the stock market to rally. Trump filed his latest financial disclosure on Monday, and it shows that he made 327 individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million on April 8, 2025, from companies including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), according to an analysis from investigative outlet Sludge. The next day, Trump announced that he was pausing his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, and the S&P 500 went up by nearly 10 percent, one of its largest one-day increases ever.The timing of these trades suggests he planned to cash in, realizing that markets would rally after his announcement. Those weren’t the only suspicious stock trades he made last year, either. On August 18, Trump’s accounts bought between $250,000 and $500,000 of stock in chipmaker Intel, four days before the president announced that the federal government would take a nearly $9 billion equity stake in the company. Intel’s stock price went up 6 percent after that announcement.Trump also bought stock in defense contractor Palantir Technologies throughout the year, publicly praising the company while increasing its federal contracts, particularly those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of his top advisers, White House deputy chief of staff and anti-immigration hawk Stephen Miller, also owns between $100,001 and $250,000 of Palantir stock. This year, Trump singled out Palantir on Truth Social in April and sent its stock price soaring.By law, Trump and other executive branch officials are supposed to publicly disclose securities transfers, including stock purchases, over $1,000 within 45 days. Not only did Trump wait more than a year to disclose the April stock purchases, he didn’t disclose any other of the thousands of stock trades he made in 2025.In all, Trump reported $2.2 billion in income in 2025, from crypto, stock trades, foreign real estate, suing news organizations, and other grifts. His administration is openly engaging in market manipulation and insider trading without any fear of consequences.
