Bill Allison and Jessica Menton
President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he or his investment advisers made more than 3700 trades in the first quarter, a flurry totalling tens of millions of dollars and involving major companies that have dealings with his administration.
The transactions, spelled out in more than 100 pages of documents filed on Thursday with the US Office of Government Ethics, list purchases and sales in broad ranges, making it hard to calculate an exact value. But the volume of trading — more than 40 per day over a three-month period — stands out as much as the potential dollar value.
“This is an insane amount of trades,” said Matthew Tuttle, chief executive officer of Tuttle Capital Management, in an interview, adding that it looks more like something done by “a hedge fund with massive algo trades” that buys and shorts securities than a personal account.
In the first quarter, the president bought at least $US1 million ($1.4 million) each in companies including Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing and Costco Wholesale, according to the documents. Other trades involved eBay, Abbott Laboratories, Uber Technologies, AT&T and discount store Dollar Tree.
The disclosure reignites conflict-of-interest concerns that have shadowed Trump’s terms in the White House. Critics have regularly accused him of mixing his official duties with his business interests. Unlike his predecessors, Trump didn’t divest or move his assets into a blind trust with an independent overseer. His sprawling business empire is managed by two of his sons and operates in several areas that intersect with presidential policy.
At the same time, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner helps manage billions in investments for Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates while simultaneously serving as a “volunteer” envoy for the president on issues affecting the war in Iran and the Middle East in general.
The White House dismissed questions about potential conflicts, with spokesman David Ingle saying that Trump “only acts in the best interests of the American public.” He added: “There are no conflicts of interest.”
A spokesperson for the Trump Organisation earlier said that the president’s holdings are independently managed by third-party financial institutions who have control over all investment decisions, with trades executed through automated processes. Trump, his family members and his company play no role in making transactions, the spokesperson said. They receive no advance notice of trading activity and provide no input, she added.
The trading volume exceeds anything Trump has previously reported. In the fourth quarter of last year, he made 380 transactions, mostly purchases of municipal debt, though he also bought some commercial paper, according to his filings.
He made his first disclosure of asset purchases in August, reporting 690 transactions he had made starting on January 21, 2025, the day after the start of his second term. Those transactions, covering about seven months, totalled at least $US103.7 million.
Trump ‘only acts in the best interests of the American public. There are no conflicts of interest’.
Whitehouse spokesman David Ingle
The president’s disclosures spurred questions from some on Wall Street who expressed surprise at the trading volume.
“I’m baffled,” said Eric Diton, president and managing director at The Wealth Alliance. “In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards.”
“We’d need to see the actual trades to try and understand why anyone would want to do that much trading,” Diton added.
Adam Sarhan, founder of 50 Park Investments, said the frequency of trading was “tremendous”.
“What I really want to know is, at the end of all those trades, was the account positive or negative?” Sarhan said.
Trump has made a number of policy moves that affect the publicly listed companies he traded, and he interacts regularly with many of the executives of those firms. That includes Nvidia, whose chips, critical to AI development, require US government approval for foreign sales.
Trump pulled Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang into his recent trip to Beijing during a refuelling stop, joining a delegation that included top executives from Boeing, Citigroup and Tesla as well as other major companies.
Six of Trump’s trades involved Intel; his administration hammered out an agreement to take a 10 per cent stake for nearly $US9 billion in the iconic chipmaker in August. Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company gained 20 per cent in the first quarter and more than doubled in April after delivering a sales forecast that shattered Wall Street expectations.
Trump’s comments haven’t always benefited the companies whose assets he trades. While in Beijing, his announcement that China would purchase 200 Boeing jets pushed shares down because the order was expected to be larger.
Netflix and Paramount Skydance battled to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in a months-long fight with both suitors raising potential antitrust concerns. Trump made investments related to all three companies. He bought a modest stake in Warner Bros. in March, worth at least $US30,000, a stake in Paramount Skydance worth at least $US15,000 the same month. He also had 19 transactions naming Netflix, including sales worth as little as $US1000 and as much as $US5 million during the first quarter.
“All of this raises questions that you’d rather not raise as a president,” said Tuttle. “So, now people are asking why is he buying Nvidia and other companies now? When you’re the president you know everything, so any stock you buy, there’s a huge question mark.”
Previous presidents divested assets or took other steps to avoid conflicts of interest or even the appearance of ethical issues while in office. George H.W. Bush had a blind trust that held his investments both while he served as vice president and when he became president himself in 1989. His successor, Bill Clinton, did the same after assuming office.
Federal law only required officeholders to report transactions involving securities after the passage of the STOCK Act in 2012, which strengthened disclosure requirements for executive branch officials and members of Congress.
Neither former President Barack Obama, whose money was invested in Treasury bills and broadly diversified mutual funds, nor Joe Biden traded stocks or bonds while in office. Trump is the first president who triggered the disclosure requirement.
Trump’s biggest sales came on February 10, when he unloaded holdings in three technology firms: Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com, in amounts between $US5 million and $US25 million.
The tech giants’ performance has been mixed since then: Shares of Meta Platforms have lost almost 10 per cent while Amazon shares have added some 30 per cent following the stock’s best run for April since 2007. Microsoft shares have traded flat.
Federal ethics laws require officials to report trades no later than 45 days after they’re made. Both of Trump’s filings missed that deadline, but the penalty in the law is nominal: a $US200 fine for each late disclosure. Trump’s filings indicate he paid the fee on both.
Trump has dismissed critics who have accused him of taking financial advantage of being the US president. In a January interview with the New York Times, Trump said he didn’t get any credit for reining in his business interests in his first term.
“I got nothing but criticised,” Trump said.
In a separate matter, the government ethics office granted Trump a 45-day extension to file his annual financial disclosure. That document provides information on the value and income earned in 2025 from his sprawling business empire, which includes crypto, resorts, golf courses and his social media company.
The extensions are routinely granted when requested. The disclosures, originally supposed to be filed Friday, are now due on June 29.
Bloomberg
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