Letter to the editor: Insider trading at the White House?

Who is policing possible/probable insider stock trading in Donald Trump’s White House? Based on the last five months of chaotic rollercoaster-ride stock prices, it is obvious that President Trump can drastically affect the price of practically any stock up or down with a simple on-or-off tariff announcement.

For instance, Apple stock was trading at about $250 per share at the beginning of the year. It has plummeted to about $170 per share after Trump’s announcement of a possible 25% tariff on Apple phones produced outside the country. If someone with insider information about Trump’s plan had shorted Apple stock in January and covered the short sale after Trump’s tariff threat, they would have made a profit of about 30% in five months.

Does anyone with half a brain believe this is not happening in Trump’s “everything is for sale” White House? And please do not try to compare this with Hunter Biden’s penny-ante million- dollar influence-peddling scandal. Insider trading affecting the entire stock market could be a multi-trillion-dollar scheme. The effect on Apple’s market value alone was over three-quarters of a trillion dollars. I.e., about $3.5 trillion to $2.9 trillion.

Gerald Schiller

Penn Hills