September 19, 2003: FBI Finds No Proof of 9/11 Insider Trading

Spokesperson Paul Bresson announces that the FBI has concluded that there was no insider trading in US securities markets by people with advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. According to Bresson, the “vast majority” of a pre-attack surge of trading in options that bet on a drop in the stock of AMR Corp., which owns American Airlines, and UAL Corp., which owns United Airlines, was conducted by investment hedge funds implementing bearish investment strategies or hedging a line position of common stock and was not linked to terrorists. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/19/2003; Washington Post, 9/19/2003] Independent research will indicate otherwise a few months later.