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Surprisingly, the green debt ceiling deal lit up the Mountain Valley pipeline.
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A trader bought 100,000 pipeline owner call options days before it was announced.
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The identity of the mystery trader is unknown, and some believe it to be an insider trading concern.
As part of the debt ceiling deal, it was the surprise concession that made it onto the bill approval of the Mountain Valley pipeline, A 304-mile natural gas link from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia.
A pet project for West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has been awash in Congress, law requiring action on permits that should move the project forward.
However, there was no general reason to believe that the pipeline was in the deal at all, which makes the actions of a mysterious trader – who committed murder upon his listing – somewhat suspicious, According to Bloomberg analysis of trading data.
Shares of Equitrans Midstream Corporation are down 35% last year. On May 24, a few days before a deal was to be concluded, a mysterious trader bought 100,000 call options – essentially betting on an increase in stock prices – on Equitrans Midstream. Then, on May 27, the debt deal including the Mountain Valley pipeline was closed.
After this announcement, Equitrans Midstream shares jumped 49%.
From the looks of it, the betting trader has earned $7.5 million as of last Friday, According to Bloomberg. The options are still outstanding, so that number could grow should Equitrans Midstream continue to rally.
Needless to say, that kind of fishy perfect timing. The deal in Mountain Valley was kept secret until the debt deal was made public. Some are suspicious enough that they want to investigate it for possible insider trading.
Equitrans said neither they nor any of the executives were involved in the transactions. Manchin himself said he knew nothing about options trading. The negotiations ran pretty close to the vest between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and the White House. Ethics watchers want answers, according to Bloomberg.
Despite this, members of Congress are prohibited from trading on classified information Inside investigation 2021 It found frequent violations of the equity law among the members.
Read the original article at Business interested