Trading Giant Susquehanna Lost Over $70 Million To Mystery Insider Traders
Trading giant Susquehanna Investment Group said it was attempting to unmask the identities of individuals it claims made at least $100 million trading on inside information about a Chinese government crackdown on cross-border brokerages last month.
The Pennsylvania-based market-maker, which says it was the counterparty on most of the alleged insider trades, sued 100 John Doe defendants in Manhattan federal court on Monday. Susquehanna is seeking to recover more than $70 million it says it lost to what it believes is one of the largest insider-trading schemes in recent memory, Bloomberg reported.
While it’s unusual for a major Wall Street firm to sue as a victim of insider trading - which is normally policed by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors - in suing the dozens of unknown traders, aka "John Does", Susquehanna is using a tactic sometimes employed by the SEC to seek information it hopes will identify the alleged insider traders.
According to Susquehanna, many of the trades were made from accounts at Interactive Brokers Group Inc., as well as the platforms of two firms targeted in the Chinese crackdown, Futu Holdings and Up Fintech’s Tiger Brokers (we discussed this in May in "China Launches Crackdown On Cross-Border Stock Selling To Block Capital Outflows").
Susquehanna is seeking an order freezing certain accounts at those brokerages and authorizing subpoenas of them.
Susquehanna, which is one of the largest US market-makers and is active in options, stocks, energy, bonds and foreign exchange markets, said in an SEC filing that its equity positions in the first quarter totaled more than $893 billion. The closely held company based in the Philadelphia suburbs has made its co-founder Jeff Yass one of the richest people in the world with a fortune estimated at $92 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Susquehanna’s allegations focus on 200,000 short-dated put option bets placed in the two weeks before the Chinese government’s May 22 announcement that it would punish firms helping mainland Chinese clients illegally invest overseas. The statement was released by eight regulators, including the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the central bank and the public security ministry.
Almost simultaneously, regulators released a statement singling out Futu, Tiger and the unlisted Long Bridge Securities for operating in China without onshore licenses. Futu and Up Fintech’s shares plummeted in response.
In its suit, Susquehanna alleges several accounts engaged in a pattern of “high risk, high reward trading” designed to take advantage of the projected drops. In one example, a trader purchased the option to sell Futu shares at $102.45 — down from $124.58 — up to a week after the Chinese government’s announcement.
There was “powerful evidence” the traders were using material non-public information to inform their well-timed bets, Susquehanna alleges. It said the tips could have come from Chinese securities regulators or personnel at Futu or Up Fintech.
The traders collectively purchased $12 million in options, yielding a profit of more than $100 million and a return of more than 900%.
“By way of comparison, Raj Rajaratnam’s infamous insider trading scheme at Galleon Management yielded only approximately $53 million in profits,” Susquehanna said in its complaint, referring to the hedge fund manager convicted in 2011.
According to Bloomberg, the alleged insider traders’ use of Interactive Brokers could prove awkward for that firm. The suit doesn’t accuse Interactive Brokers of wrongdoing, but founder Thomas Peterffy, also one of the world’s richest men with an estimated $104 billion fortune, is an outspoken supporter of legalizing insider trading.
“I’m in favor of not having any rules against insider trading. I would like all the information out there as soon as it’s available,” he said in an recent interview on Bloomberg. “Because look, as a society, we are better off knowing as soon as possible anything that is knowable.”
Would Netflix Make a Play for NBCUniversal Post Spin-Off? Why That’s Unlikely to Happen
Over an intense six-week period last fall, Netflix went from an initial phone call between co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav to sealing an $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros.’ streaming and studios business. But even after being repeatedly rebuffed David Ellison refused to give up, and ultimately his Paramount Skydance outbid Netflix with an $111 billion offer for the entirety of WBD.
So the news Monday that Comcast plans to carve off NBCUniversal (together with Sky) as an independently traded entity immediately made people wonder: Would Netflix go back to the M&A trenches to try to win a deal for NBCU?
Popular on Variety
Related Stories
Mark Harmon Returning as Gibbs in 'NCIS: Origins' Season 3 Story Arc
After all, separated from Comcast, NBCU looks similar — kind of, sort of — to the Warner Bros. streaming and studios businesses that Netflix had made a multibillion-dollar bet on. Both have streaming services (Peacock and HBO Max) that would benefit from Netflix’s much larger scale, coupled with TV and film production studios that would give juice to its content pipeline. Also note that Comcast was in the game: The company in December 2025 formally entered a bid to buy the Warner Bros. streaming and studios assets with a “headline price” of $35.43 per WBD share.
After the spin-off announcement, Comcast execs firmly denied that the separation of the cable and NBCU/Sky businesses signaled expected M&A actions. Comcast chairman and co-CEO Brian Roberts said, “Absolutely not,” and co-chief Mike Cavanagh (who is slated to become CEO of the stand-alone NBCU) said, “Definitely not.”
“Our plan for NBCUniversal and Sky is to build and invest for growth,” Cavanagh said on the call with analysts. “We have the ambition, that’s big, to pursue opportunities that keep us ahead of evolving consumer behavior and audience demands. And we have the freedom now to explore adjacent businesses where we have the right to play.”
You could read the disavowals about M&A from Comcast’s top execs as reflecting their desire to project the image that, if any merger or acquisition opportunities were on the horizon, they would be negotiating from a position of strength. As such, some observers speculated that Comcast and NBCU independently will indeed be chasing big deals on their own. But that wouldn’t be until after the transaction is completed, expected in mid-2027, while “to preserve the tax-free nature of the spin, a sale [of NBCU] can’t even be contemplated for a couple of years,” according to Craig Moffett, principal analyst and co-founder of MoffettNathanson.
Moffett doesn’t see any obvious M&A deals emerging from the separation of Comcast and NBCU. Here’s an excerpt of his discussion about Netflix as a potential acquirer of NBCU: “When Netflix made its run at WBD, it arguably tipped its hand. Netflix wanted Warner’s library, and it wanted Warner’s IP.” But NBCU’s library and IP “aren’t quite the equal of Warner’s — most would agree there’s a rather large gap — but they’re the next best,” Moffett wrote in a June 29 research note.
Peacock had 46 million subscribers as of Q1 (up 2 million from the end of 2025), making it significantly smaller than Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ or Hulu. But “Peacock’s scale problem doesn’t demand M&A,” Moffett wrote. “It can be far more readily addressed through simple distribution agreements. The scale that matters isn’t the size of the company, it’s the size of the content bundle.”
While NBCU has spun off most of its (declining) cable TV networks into Versant Media, it still owns the NBC broadcast business. LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield, in a blog post, pointed out that Netflix would not want to own the NBC network and stations, which would entail direct regulation by the FCC. And whereas HBO was a prestige brand fueling Netflix’s interest in the Warner Bros. case, “Peacock is not an asset Netflix would want to buy or maintain,” Greenfield wrote. He added, “We also find it hard to believe Netflix really wants to own a large theme park business, which is NBCU’s primary asset” — its most profitable segment. Plus, while Universal Studios would be attractive, especially the Illumination animation business (which is behind franchises including Despicable Me and Minions), “it feels hard to separate the studio from the rest of the company.”
Indeed, an independent NBCU would more likely be a buyer than a seller, per Greenfield. He cites potential targets as Sony Pictures Entertainment, Roblox and Mediawan.
Meanwhile, there was chatter that the Comcast-NBCU split would set up Comcast to merge with the U.S.’s biggest cable operator, Charter Communications (whose deal to buy Cox is pending). But “the logic against a Charter merger is even clearer” than any deal involving NBCU, according to Moffett. “Both Comcast and Charter are amply large enough that further benefits from scale in SG&A or, say, procurement, would be minimal,” he wrote, adding that any gains in negotiating leverage for programming deals would not be as meaningful as they once were. And even if national regulators were willing to allow OK a Comcast-Charter merger, state regulatory commissions “would make the regulatory process a nightmare.”
After Sarandos walked away from the deal, he admitted he was disappointed that Netflix lost the fight for Warner Bros. But overall, the company came out of the process “with no change in our capital allocation philosophy,” he said on the streamer’s Q1 earnings interview in April.
And while Netflix was willing to spend big on WB, it had its limits. “We said this from the beginning, that the WB deal was a ‘nice to have,’ not a ‘need to have,'” Sarandos said. NBCU would probably be a nice to have. But it’s highly doubtful Netflix would go all out to acquire it.
Jump to Comments-
Ajay Devgn Sets Action Comeback With ‘Chauhaan,’ From Jio Studios and Colour Yellow
-
Riteish Deshmukh’s ‘Raja Shivaji’ Posts Record Opening Weekend for Marathi Cinema
-
Oscar-Winning Producer Guneet Monga Kapoor on Genre Pivot, Women in Film India at Cannes: ‘I Am Ambitious, and I’m Not Scared About That Ambition’
Several US states enter 'zone of sweaty despair' TODAY
Many Americans are entering what meteorologists call the 'zone of sweaty despair,' with humidity in two US states set to become more stifling than the Amazon rainforest.
The extreme humidity in Illinois and Iowa, however, is not amplified by a weather pattern - but by corn.
As corn reaches its peak growth phase across the Corn Belt, the fields start acting like steam machines, fueling dangerous heat that could last through the weekend.
A single acre of mature corn can release between 2,000 and 4,000 gallons of water vapor into the atmosphere each day through a process known as evapotranspiration, essentially causing the plants to 'sweat.'
That moisture builds up near the ground, driving dew points to potentially reach 80 degrees in parts of Iowa and Illinois and making conditions feel even more stifling.
For comparison, forecasters noted that the highest dew point they could find in the Amazon rainforest was 79 degrees, meaning parts of the Midwest could briefly become even more humid than one of the wettest places on Earth.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued an Extreme Heat Warning for the entire state of Illinois and most of Iowa. Both states are experiencing dangerously hot conditions with heat index values up to 110°F.
A relentless high-pressure system parked over the Tennessee River Valley is baking the region, while a surge of moisture in the atmosphere is creating dangerously suffocating humidity.
Many Americans are entering what meteorologists call the 'zone of sweaty despair,' with humidity in two US states set to become more stifling than the Amazon rainforest
Read More
EXCLUSIVE I saw unreleased UFO files at a secret meeting in the Tennessee mountains. We prayed after seeing what these 'humanoid beings' did... the world is not prepared
MyRadar Weather shared online that the two states have entered the 'zone of sweaty despair,' saying: 'Congratulations, Iowa and Illinois – you're more humid than the Amazon Rainforest.'
The corn fields have started pumping thousands of gallons of water per acre into the air each day through a process called evapotranspiration, or corn sweat.
That moisture gets trapped under the heat dome, turning the region into a huge sauna.
Justin Glisan, an Iowa State University climatologist, said: 'The phenomenon is thick and oppressive, particularly if there is no wind, like being fully clothed in a sauna or steam room.'
The humidity is also being trapped by a heat dome developing over much of the US, which works like a lid of high pressure. It builds overhead, trapping hot air at the surface level, suppressing clouds and intensifying sunlight.
Meteorologists have called this particular summer event a 'mega' or 'double heat dome' because two separate high-pressure systems, one over the Southwest and another being influenced by the subtropical Atlantic, have merged into one massive dome over the US.
In Illinois, nearly the entire state is under an Extreme Heat Warning.
Central and southeast Illinois, including Springfield, Peoria, Champaign, Decatur, Bloomington and Effingham, are expected to endure heat index values between 105°F and 110°F through Thursday night.
A week-long heat dome is causing heat and humidity to build over more than 30 states, causing temperatures to rise dangerously high
Northern Illinois, including Rockford, Aurora, Joliet and communities in the Chicago suburbs, is also under a warning through Thursday, with heat index values expected to hover around 105°F each afternoon.
Forecasters warned that thunderstorms may bring some relief to portions of northern Illinois by Thursday afternoon or evening, but dangerous heat will persist until then.
Iowa is facing a similar ordeal.
Southern and southeast Iowa, including Des Moines, Ottumwa, Indianola, Pella and Creston, remain under an Extreme Heat Warning until Thursday evening, with heat index values expected to reach 104°F.
Central and eastern parts of the state, including Ames, Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Marshalltown, are under warnings through Wednesday night, while portions of northwest Iowa, including Estherville, Algona and Carroll, are enduring heat index values up to 102°F.
The prolonged nature of the heat wave is adding to concerns.
In both states, overnight temperatures are expected to remain in the mid- and upper 70s, offering little relief after sunset and making it harder for people without air conditioning to cool their homes and recover from the daytime heat.
'Heat-related illnesses increase significantly during extreme heat and high humidity events,' the National Weather Service warned in its advisories.
Officials are urging residents to drink plenty of fluids, remain in air-conditioned spaces and avoid strenuous outdoor activities during the hottest parts of the day. People who must work outside are encouraged to take frequent breaks and limit activities to the early morning or evening.
The NWS also stressed that young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles, warning that temperatures inside a car can become lethal within minutes.
With the heat wave expected to linger for several more days, forecasters are urging residents across Illinois and Iowa to check on elderly relatives, neighbors and anyone without access to air conditioning before the dangerous conditions turn deadly.
