I am going to retract on this post. I have been able to reach one of the journalists who published the original posts in major newspaper and they have said their concerns were long ago settled on this question.

It's interesting that none of the journalists who posted these relatively explosive stories subsequently published a story retracting. The single journalist I was able to reach on it, said he thought he had essentially retracted in some side notes, but that is really pretty weak from a journalistic ethics pov.

And, so today, if you google this story, you can still find lots of references to the original story and no retractions pop up. I think it's important when a story is wrong, that the paper print a no-nonsense retraction.

I hereby retract. I think the story regarding the put options on the WTC attacks is not factual.

Original post below:

I believe there is no question that some folks made bets (put and call options) based on foreknowledge of the attacks planned against the World Trade Centers on September 11th.

If an investigator wanted to know all about the crime, wouldn't it make sense to track down the individuals who made the bets, find out how they came to have foreknowledge, and correlate the results of the investigation of the profits with all the other evidence that could be gathered regarding the collapse of the WTC buildings (3 of them).

CBS News reported on the put options on September 19, 2001. Bloomberg News and the London Times were carrying the same story about the same time. There doesn't seem to be much question that folks placed bets based on inside knowledge about the attacks.

A lot of folks spent some time trying to argue that the put options were not that unusual, that this was simply hysteria of some sort. But if you win on a bet in the stock market, would you come get your money?

The SF Chronicle reports on September 29, 2001 that somebody was leaving 2.5 million USD on the table rather than stepping up to pick up their profit and answer any questions regarding their bets.

I don't want to go into all of the various conspiracy theories regarding September 11th. There are too many of them and lots of them are pretty far-fetched. But I do think that certain basic investigation processes could and should be followed to bring criminals to justice. And one investigative process that did not seem to be completed was to follow this money trail and identify the parties involved.

If you want to comment, please keep the discussion down to the money trail on the put/call options.