by WorldTribune Staff, July 18, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
The list of things that don’t add up about the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump is getting longer.
Did a New York Times photographer use special equipment to capture the bullet’s flight at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally and if so why?
Meanwhile, an Austin, Texas firm is scrambling to explain how on July 12, via a put option, the financial services company reportedly shorted 12 million shares of Trump Media (NASDAQ: DJT) stock, according to an SEC filing.
BlackRock and Vanguard (George Soros) are the two largest investors in Austin Private Wealth.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the would-be assassin of Donald Trump, once appeared in a commercial for Black Rock.
No big deal, according to BlackRock:
In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a teacher from Bethel Park High School, in which several unpaid students briefly appeared in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks,” BlackRock said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
Austin Private Wealth on July 17 released the following statement:
“The SEC filing which showed that Austin Private Wealth shorted a large number of shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (DJT) was incorrect and we immediately amended it as soon as we learned of the error.
“No client of APW holds, or has ever held, a put on DJT in the quantity initially reported. The correct holding amount was 12 contracts, or 1,200 shares — not 12 million shares, as was filed in error. In submitting the required report for the second quarter of 2024, a multiplier was applied by a third-party vendor that increased the number of the shares by a multiple of 10,000 for all options contracts (not just DJT). We did not catch the error before approving the filing.
“We filed the report on July 12 to reflect our positions on June 28. We amended it on July 16.
“We deeply regret this error and the concern it has caused, especially at such a fraught moment for our nation. We are committed to full transparency and maintaining the trust of our clients. As such, we are reviewing our internal procedures and our processes with the third-party vendor that assists with SEC filings to better understand how this happened and avoid similar issues moving forward.”
Per Wikipedia: A put option is interpreted as a negative sentiment about the future value of the underlying stock.
Some market analysts have speculated that, had Crooks assassinated Trump, the value of the media company’s stock would have plummeted to zero in one day and those with put options would have made billions.
Instead, the stock rapidly surged some 70% in the pre-market on Monday – the first trading day following the attempted assassination. Although there has been a retracing since then, DJT stock remains higher, currently trading at $36.44, compared to its closing price of $31.25 last Friday.
According to reports, Austin Private Wealth also had put options on 36 million shares of Rumble, which also would have taken a huge market hit had Trump been assassinated.
Assets Magazine noted that, had Trump been assassinated, it would “have crashed the NASDAQ and Dow Jones for a week” and “anyone who had this knowledge beforehand would have made an estimated $696 billion to $1 trillion in profits.”
BREAKING🚨🚨
A company called Austin Private Wealth LLC shorted 12,000,000 shares of $DJT via a put option. The filing date is July 12th, the day before the assassination attempt.
They have around $1 Billion in assets under management and this is by far the largest put placed.… pic.twitter.com/9ZehBexdFK
— Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) July 17, 2024
New York Times photographer’s equipment?
Bullet Trace, and interesting matters
It’s nearly 0400 here in Japan. So this is a mind-dump, sans edit:
Interesting on bullet trace — scratching my memories, I do not recall seeing any bullet trace photos from close to 90 degrees from bullet’s flight path. Am not saying it…
— Michael Yon: Callsign BIG HONEY 6 (@Michael_Yon) July 16, 2024
🚨#BREAKING: Combat correspondent and photographer Michael Yon comments on NYT reporter Doug Mills decision to use a HIGHLY advanced camera the day Trump was SHOT!
Yon said “The New York Times photographer, Doug Mills, is quoted as shooting at 30fps 1/8000.
Those are… https://t.co/yMojro0sN9 pic.twitter.com/jo4FqBlDdb
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 18, 2024
Meet Garrett Ziegler, Free Press Foundation