Trump's methods have always been very public, taking 'create chaos - harvest profits' to the extreme as a businessman.
His 1987 published business autobiography (The Art of the Deal) mainly discusses his early business experiences and negotiation strategies, simply summarized as: creating topics to gain attention, using crises and controversies to create opportunities, maximizing personal and family benefits through strong negotiations and flexible strategies, regardless of crossing moral and legal boundaries.
Several terms that frequently appear in the book: Think Big; Get the Word Out & Promotion; Keep Options Open; Deliver the Goods.
From this autobiography (which has been placed in the planetary group), we seem to already see the trajectory of Trump's future development: a businessman adept at exploiting loopholes in the rules, skilled at creating topics, and pursuing maximum profit at any cost. When this business mindset is brought into the political arena, 'The Art of the Deal' evolves into 'Monetizing Power.'
From early real estate speculation to the stock market and then to the cryptocurrency circle, his methods are surprisingly simple: create fluctuations through operations and profit from those fluctuations. Similar to the 'press down and bounce back' ball effect.
From his Trump Media Technology Company going public to his return to the White House, he dares to increasingly brazenly bring the 'game' to the table: using a custom SPAC shell to package his social media platform Truth Social, with obvious benefits being transferred in the deal; issuing coins before taking office, then his whole family jumps into trading coins; now he's directly engaging in insider trading to manipulate the stock market. Every step walks on the edge of the rules, then retreats unscathed.
The presidential identity gave him attention from all over the world, and this huge leverage and power lowered his cost of trial and error. If we understand his current policies as his 'business logic,' it becomes much clearer:
1. Using the presidential identity to crazily monetize and accumulate wealth for himself and his family.
2. Using the 'Mar-a-Lago Agreement' as a so-called framework, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) slogan as an emotional trigger, to monitor and amplify emotional trading through algorithms and social media.
3. When the so-called 'American interests' conflict with 'personal interests', he unhesitatingly chooses the latter.
The current situation for Wall Street analysts and traders is: in addition to staring at candlestick charts and financial reports, they must also keep a 24-hour watch on Trump's social media account: a tweet sent out at midnight can immediately cause the market to plunge or surge. Capital flow dominates price trends, emotions override fundamentals, and market fluctuations have no specific reasons.
At least between April 3 and April 10, Trump has meme-ified the market. The feeling is reminiscent of the previous major shareholder of GameStop, RoaringKitty, who would roar daily on Twitter...
Trump is not an insider trader; he is an insider creator.
On April 7, Beijing time, around 10:00 PM, the panic index UVXY/VIX plummeted, originating from a piece of fake news saying that tax would be deferred for 90 days (excluding CN), combined with a video Trump posted on the platform at 10:04 PM (the content was dissing other countries, nothing unusual). Subsequently, CNBC's Eamon Javers came out to debunk it: no one in the White House knew of any plans for a 90-day pause, and then the panic index skyrocketed back.
In the end, it turns out that it wasn't fake news; the 'big player' released news in advance to test the market's reaction strength, preparing for larger-scale market fluctuations later, creating a feeling that the whole world is being toyed with, profiting amidst the fluctuations.
Until April 9, Trump continuously posted on his social media Truth Social (which is DJT):
On April 9 at 7:58 AM: Republicans, it is more important than ever to pass this great and beautiful bill. America will take off in an unprecedented way!!!
On April 9 at 9:33 AM: Stay calm! Everything will go smoothly, and America will be greater than ever.
On April 9 at 9:37 AM: Now is a good time to buy, DJT (the comments on the post are quite funny, you can check it out).
On April 10 at 1:19 AM: Tax deferral for more than 10 non-retaliatory countries for 90 days, increasing tariffs on CN from 84% to 125%.
Subsequently, U.S. stocks soared, with the S&P 500 rising 9.52%, the NASDAQ composite rising 12.16%, and the Dow Jones rising 7.87%. Among them, the NASDAQ even saw the second-highest single-day increase in history.
At the same time, DJT surged 21.67% in a single day, which can be seen in two segments: the first segment was shortly after the market opened at 9:33 AM when Trump tweeted a stock recommendation, causing the price to rise from $16.5 to $18; the second segment was at 1:19 AM the next day with news of tax deferral, which jumped from $18 to a closing price of $20.27. Trump personally holds about 114 million shares, with an unrealized profit of about $410 million.
DJT is the social media platform Truth Social, with no fundamentals (2024 income of $3.62 million, net loss of $400 million), serving as a personal traffic pool for Trump, a monetization tool of personal charisma. It's a typical 'ZZ figure + internet celebrity' Meme stock.
Within just 24 hours, DJT's Meme status on the fear & greed index skyrocketed from 29 to 8 (based on the discussion heat among retail investors on the subreddit wallstreetbets, with an increase of 240 mentions in a single day).
One moment raising tariffs, the next moment deferring them, and even openly pushing stocks on social platforms—doesn't that count as market manipulation? Important Democratic member Adam Schiff, a California congressman and strong critic of Trump (who served as the lead prosecutor in Trump's first impeachment case), tweeted expressing skepticism and calling for Congress to investigate whether Trump was involved in insider trading and market manipulation.
The timing of the sudden policy change is suspicious; the Trump family may profit from insider information, including various investment tools such as 'Meme Coins' that could be used for insider trading.
In fact, there are unverified reports that on April 3, 2025, when the S&P 500 plummeted by 4.85%, data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange showed:
The Trump family fund holds $38 billion worth of NASDAQ put options.
Son-in-law Kushner's Affinity fund shorted Apple and Tesla for a profit of $5.7 billion.
Short-selling profits were transferred to the Dubai Digital Gold Exchange via a British Virgin Islands SPV.
Trump is not an insider trader; he is an insider creator. The ultimate strategy of the 'big player': he is both a policy maker and a public opinion leader, and can also accurately grasp trading timing. The SEC cannot sue him; the previous Democrat SEC chairman Gary Gensler, who was in opposition to him, has already stepped down, and he was very strict, extremely unfriendly to cryptocurrencies and Chinese concept stocks.
Coincidentally, just 12 hours ago, Paul Atkins (CEO of Patomak Global Partners) was confirmed by the Senate as the new chairman of the SEC. Known for opposing excessive regulation, advocating for loosening financial controls. He was a financial regulatory advisor on Trump's 2016 presidential transition team and served as an economic advisor during Trump's first term, consistently supporting the position of loosening Wall Street regulation, highly consistent with Trump's ideology.
Historically, the highest single-day rebounds are basically dead cat bounces.
The highest single-day increase in history occurred on January 3, 2001, during the tech bubble, with a single-day surge of 14.17%, resulting from the announcement of a 50bp interest rate cut by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan outside the FOMC meeting that day.
In the red circle in the image below, the NASDAQ's single-day surge was a 'dead cat bounce,' and after a few weeks of fluctuations, it fell to the bottom.
Looking at the 10 highest single-day increases in NASDAQ history (see below): 4 occurred during the 2000-2001 tech bubble; 2 during the 2008 financial crisis; 2 during the 2020 mask crisis; and 1 recently on April 9, 2025 (the latest), ranking second in history.
What does this indicate? The largest single-day increases often occur during bear markets or major crises. Market panic leads to overselling, and sudden good news (such as policy stimulus or negative rewind) triggers a strong rebound, followed by short covering that causes a surge.
Historically, such large rebounds often do not indicate that a bottom has been reached; rather, they may be a 'dead cat bounce' phenomenon. For example, several large increases in 2001 occurred before technology stocks finally bottomed out; after the October 2008 rebound, the market continued to decline.
