I’ve always heard that Iran was home to some brilliant filmmakers.
Somebody on that end understands American culture in more depth than most Americans, and is wielding that understanding to communicate more effectively, and sadly, with more credibility, than much of the American media or, certainly, the administration.
Iran is emerging from this war an order of magnitude stronger, both economically and culturally.
President Trump’s bombing campaign against Iran is yielding a windfall for some of America’s top oil executives.
Executives sold stock worth $1.4 billion in the first quarter of the year as the share prices of Chevron CVX -4.29%decrease, ConocoPhillips COP , Diamondback Energy FANG and other oil-and-gas companies soared on the back of a historic shock to the world’s crude supplies, according to an analysis of insider-transaction disclosures from analytics firm VerityData.
Some of the sales were prearranged under plans that allow executives to sell stock automatically at specific times or share prices without making in-the-moment decisions that could leave them open to allegations of improper trading. The plans are often set weeks or months in advance, though the specifics are rarely public. Nonetheless, the executives’ timing was auspicious.
Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth sold some $104 million worth of shares between January and March. ConocoPhillips’s Ryan Lance netted about $54.3 million in share sales in March alone. Lorenzo Simonelli, CEO of oil-field services company Baker Hughes, sold about $33 million worth of stock that same month.
“Some of the sales were prearranged under plans that allow executives to sell stock automatically at specific times or share prices without making in-the-moment decisions that could leave them open to allegations of improper trading.”
That’s pretty standard for executives of major publicly-traded companies.
Watch instead for those big after-hours buys and shorts.