New York companies enjoy ‘unusual' share surge before Trump's sons join
Two little-known Wall Street companies experienced an 'unusual' stock price surge before an announcement naming Donald Trump's sons to the board, raising fears over potential insider trading.
Shares in drone maker Unusual Machines, which listed on the Nasdaq last year, surged by more than 220pc in the four weeks leading up to the recruitment of Donald Trump Jr on Nov 27.
Meanwhile, shares of fintech group Dominari Holdings, which is headquartered in New York's Trump Tower, were catapulted 580pc higher in the six weeks before bosses announced Donald Trump Jr had joined its advisory board.
Eric Trump, another of the US president's sons, joined at the same time.
Jeremy Summers, head of business crime at Osborne Clarke, suggested the trading patterns had 'the potential to involve insider dealing'.
He said: 'The authorities will need to look closely at trading patterns, messaging platforms and the timing of relevant announcements, but if they all align one would often expect enforcement action to follow.
'A question that may, however, remain is, how much has the SEC been neutered by the present administration?'
Average daily trading volumes in Unusual Machines rose to 290,000 shares per day in the month leading up to Donald Trump Jr's appointment – compared to just 93,000 shares between March and October 2024.
Dominari, which has a market value of about $60m (£45m), saw a steeper increase from 11,700 between March and December 2024 to 1.2m.
The increase was first reported by the Financial Times. Adam Pritchard, a University of Michigan law professor, told it that the stock movements were 'clearly unusual'.
The Trump brothers were each given 966,000 shares in Dominari, regulatory filings show, which are worth 6.7pc of the company, prior to the announcement of their roles.
Unusual Machines, which has a market value of about $90m, said in November that Donald Trump Jr held 200,000 shares issued under 'a restricted stock unit agreement and advisory agreement', in addition to 131,000 shares he bought.
Unusual Machines told the Financial Times that knowledge of Donald Trump Jr's planned involvement was limited to three senior officers, as well as its board and counsel.
It said it had 'no reason to believe that any of these people breached any duty, whether legal or fiduciary', and the company has 'no knowledge as to why any investor bought [its] stock during this period'.
Unusual Machines and Dominari did not respond to requests for comment.
It comes a week after Democratic Party leaders demanded an investigation into whether the US president had engaged in insider trading in the hours before he announced a reversal of his tariff policy.
Mr Trump had written on Truth Social that it was a 'great time to buy' while Nasdaq call volume, where traders buy the right to purchase a share at a certain price before a certain date, spiked in the hour before the president announced his 90-day suspension of most of his tariffs.
Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator in California, said: 'I'm writing to the White House to demand [to know] who knew in advance that the president was going to, once again, flip-flop on tariffs. And are people cashing in?
'There is just all too much opportunity for people in the White House and the administration to be insider trading.'
Elizabeth Warren, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and a Massachusetts senator, added: 'Right before Donald Trump declared that some of his tariffs were off again, he sent out a message to his billionaire buddies.
'Was that market manipulation? Was that corruption in plain sight? We need an independent investigation.'
The White House criticised the claims, claiming that Democrats were 'playing partisan games'.
'It is the responsibility of the president of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of non-stop media fear-mongering,' a spokesman said last week.
'Democrats railed against China's cheating for decades, and now they're playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump's decisive action yesterday to finally corner China.'
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