The Facts
Israel is investigating a report by prominent US researchers that claims investors might have been aware of Hamas' planned attack on Oct. 7 in advance and used that information to profit millions of dollars by short-selling Israeli stocks.
Law Professors Robert Jackson Jr. of New York University and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University published the report Monday, which analyzed financial transactions leading up to the attack, noting a large number of investors shorting Israeli shares and profiting millions. Shorting is when an investor "borrows" a security expecting it to fall, sells it, and then buys it back, netting the difference.
The Spin
Narrative A
The overwhelming data analysis presented by two premier academics shows that investors likely knew about the terror organization’s brutal attack on Israel and used that information to profit off the tragedy. It's not a coincidence to see an exponential increase in trading that bet against the Israeli economy right before the country experienced one of its worst terror attacks. Rigorous analysis shows that this increase could not have been by chance, especially since a similar pattern was observed before a previously planned attack.
Narrative B
The American professors who published this report acted completely irresponsibly and committed clear errors in their analysis. While trying to analyze the pattern of trading in the lead-up to Oct. 7, these so-called brilliant scholars did not pay attention to the denomination of currency used on the trading exchanges and confused agorot with shekels. One hundred agorot equals one shekel — financial knowledge one should learn about before publishing speculative and defamatory reports like this one.