FAKE NEWS: Reports of Investor’s ‘Insider Knowledge’ of Hamas Attack Based on Math Error

(VINnews) — It turns out that mainstream media reports that investors in Israel profited from advance knowledge of the October 7th Hamas attack were based on a calculation error.

In an embarrassing admission, researchers have recognized that they miscalculated the numbers in a big way.

One academic study had suggested investors betting against the Israeli economy made large sums. It said it found significant short-selling in the run-up to the attacks.

But the report has since been called “inaccurate” and “irresponsible” by the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).

“Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate the events to come,” researchers Robert Jackson Jr from NYU and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University said on Tuesday.

“Our findings suggest that traders informed about the coming attacks profited from these tragic events,” the authors wrote.

The researchers said they identified a dramatic increase in investors seeking to sell shares in Israeli companies on the TASE.

But the stock exchange said the claims made in the academic paper were inaccurate and “irresponsible”.

Yaniv Pagot, head of trading at the Exchange, said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday that the paper revealed an “unfamiliarity with the local market” because researchers incorrectly calculated the estimated profit from shorting one particular Israeli company.

The professors previously estimated that bets against Bank Leumi in the days before the October 7 attacks would have generated profits of billions of dollars. A corrected version of the research, sent to CNN Monday, fixed that mistake and estimated the profits from that trade in the millions of dollars.

TASE said the authors of the report miscalculated the sums, by calculating the value of the share prices in agorot, instead of Israeli shekels. That increased the value by 100X – similar to calculating American stock prices in pennies rather than dollars.

“Therefore they calculate a profit of NIS 3.2bn (£680m) when in practice the profit was only NIS 32m (£6.8m),” Pagot told Globes.

According to the BBC, the researchers have at least corrected the currency mistake in their report.

Pagot also said claims of a sudden spike in trading before the attack were “divorced from reality”.