Inside Austin Private Wealth’s huge Trump stock short bet

Amid reports that a $1 billion Texas asset manager shorted massive amounts of Trump Media (NASDAQ: DJT) shares just one day before the failed assassination attempt on the former United States President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, more details have come out.

Indeed, information had initially surfaced that Austin Private Wealth, LLC, a financial planning company based in Texas, had bought put options on as many as 12 million DJT stocks, forcing the company to issue a public apology and state that the situation was nothing more than a clerical error in their statement on ‘Incorrect Filing with the SEC.’

[pic] Monster bet against DJT as originally filed. Source: Fintel

Mixed up dates?
More recently, market researcher and retail investor Ryan Rigg observed that the company had already held this position on June 30, 12 days before the assassination attempt, but filed it with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 12 – one day before the attack.
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As he further added, in this period, organizations regularly file their quarterly holdings, and on July 16, Austin Private Wealth filed an amended Form 13F with the securities regulator, “which no longer shows the position,” pointing out that companies have 45 days to submit these amendments.

On the other hand, researcher and commenter on current affairs Josh Walkos, a.k.a. Champagne Joshi, whose original X post on the matter received Community Notes claiming a misunderstanding, decided to try and clear things up, arguing that the report date is not the same as file date:

“The REPORTING DATE was 6/30, and the 13F was FILED on 7/12, as if it makes a difference. Followed by an amendment on 7/16. Nowhere in that post did I say that the trade was made on 7/12, I was referring to the 13F filing date and even link to it.”