Citadel, China and The 45th - A Triangular Investigation Into "He's trying to hide some of his money"
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| Author       | Source       | 
| :-------------: |:-------------:|
|  [u/incandescent-leaf](https://www.reddit.com/user/incandescent-leaf/) | [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/DDintoGME/comments/oeptry/citadel_china_and_the_45th_a_triangular/) | 

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[𝘜𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘋𝘋](https://www.reddit.com/r/DDintoGME/search?q=flair_name%3A%22%F0%9D%98%9C%F0%9D%98%AF%F0%9D%98%B7%F0%9D%98%A6%F0%9D%98%B3%F0%9D%98%AA%F0%9D%98%A7%F0%9D%98%AA%F0%9D%98%A6%F0%9D%98%A5%20%F0%9D%98%8B%F0%9D%98%8B%22&restrict_sr=1)

Ken Griffin - Citadel. What a guy he is. Where are you, Ken? Where the hell is he? He's trying to hide some of his money.

- Trump, January 15th 2020

TL;DR

-   Ken Griffin already has hidden his money, we know he has offshore accounts. Why would he be speaking with Trump about hiding assets?

-   The direct context of the quote is all good news for Citadel's operations in China, so why was Ken absent from the ceremony and why did Trump not praise him (but praised everyone else)?

-   I spectulate Trump was actually talking about Griffin wanting to hide his *trades*

-   Circumstantial evidence for this is that 1 day before this quote, sweeping changes to the National Market System finally hit the Federal register. These changes as I have [somewhat poorly] analyzed before will make market-making and PFOF a lot less profitable for Citadel (and Virtu and other market makers), and also tidy up some loopholes likely being abused by Citadel.

Preface

This DD is about what many apes thought was a throwaway line, and so did I until recently. But I have been thinking about it lately, and the more I investigated the context, the more I came to suspect it was actually a rare, blurry glimpse into the underbelly of interactions between Wall street and US politics.

I was actually writing another DD before I came to write this, but it started to become too large of a topic, so I thought I better break off this 'sub-investigation' into its own contained unit, as it's neatly separable, and was only ever circumstantial evidence anyway.

I have deliberarely kept this post non-political, and expect all comments to be non-political as well. It's a superstonk rule that all posts/comments be non-political (Rule 5 -Improper Content). Here is a diagram of what we will be covering:

[![r/DDintoGME - Citadel, China and The 45th - A Triangular Investigation Into "He's trying to hide some of his money"](https://preview.redd.it/b7647vvlkj971.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=3dbbdc97ff90810db1557f6429ac134d7fd7cff5)](https://preview.redd.it/b7647vvlkj971.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=3dbbdc97ff90810db1557f6429ac134d7fd7cff5)

January 15th 2020 - Signing of Phase One of U.S. - China Trade Deal

January 15th, a Thursday marked a historic signing of Phase One of a U.S. - China trade deal. President Trump had made U.S. - China relations a central component of his policy as President for years before this, and so this agreement was a culmination of many years of work. Contrary to what was shown in the media, the agreement was not just about manufacturing, agriculture and intellectual property. The trade agreement has a whole chapter devoted to Financial Services - mostly with China agreeing to allow the US access to their markets. Some sources even claimed that financial services was the winner of the entire trade agreement.

On Monday the 20th January, only 5 days after this trade agreement was signed - Citadel Securities had agreed to pay a $97 Million Settlement to Chinese financial regulators, bringing a close to 5 years of active investigations and being partially banned from trading in China. We will return to this event later on in the DD. For now, let's dive into the signing ceremony of the trade agreement.

[Trump spoke for about an hour at the signing.](https://www.c-span.org/video/?468176-1/us-china-trade-deal) The first 27 minutes were overall remarks about the trade situation, and a lot of thanking personal friends and other political allies (I have pulled out relevent people's quotes):

> TRUMP: [Hank Greenberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_R._Greenberg) is here. Hank. If they took care of Hank, they wouldn't have had the problems that they had. Where's Hank? Hank Greenberg. (Applause.) Oh, Hank. If Hank stayed there like he should have, you wouldn't have had the problem that you ended up having with our economy. But it's great to have you, Hank. Thank you very much.

After this time, Trump begins to speak to industry professionals and other government appointees. This carries on for 10 minutes, and plenty of financial industry professionals were greeted by name (the roll-call was in alphabetic order). I have pulled out all the ones I can recognize:

> TRUMP: Ajay Banga, of Mastercard. Thank, Ajay. Fantastic job.

> TRUMP: Brian Duperreault, of AIG. Do you know that company, Hank? AIG. Did you ever hear of AIG, Hank Greenberg? Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Brian.

This is a joke. :) Hank Greenberg was the head of AIG.

> Mary Erdoes, JPMorgan Chase. They just announced earnings, and they were incredible. Where - where are you? They were very substantial. Will you say, "Thank you, Mr. President" at least? Huh? (Laughter.) I made a lot of bankers look very good. But you're doing a great job. Say hello to Jamie [Dimon]. I think we're seeing him tomorrow.

Then it was Ken's turn:

> TRUMP: Ken Griffin, Citadel. What a guy he is. Where are you, Ken? Where the hell is he? He's trying to hide some of his money. Look, he doesn't want to stand up. Where the hell is Ken? See, Steve, you'll stand, and he's very quiet about it. He's in here someplace; he just doesn't want to stand.

Notice how Trump doesn't praise Ken? I'm also not sure who Steve is in this context.

> TRUMP: Al Kelly, Visa. Al Kelly. Al Kelly, thank you.

> TRUMP: Alan MacDonald, Citibank. Citibank. (Applause.) Good. Boy, you brought that back so far. I remember seven, eight years ago. But Citibank is doing fantastically well.

> TRUMP: Raymond McDaniel, Moody's. Good. Are you giving us good ratings, Raymond, please? Okay? We're doing pretty good, right?

> TRUMP: Paul Taylor, of Fitch. That's another good ratings group. Are we doing okay at Fitch? Good. Otherwise, I wouldn't have introduced you, if I thought - (laughter).

> TRUMP: Kevin Warsh. Kevin. Where's Kevin? I don't know, Kevin. I could have used you a little bit here. Why weren't you more forceful when you wanted that job? Why weren't you more forceful, Kevin? You're a forceful person. In fact, I thought you were too forceful, maybe, for the job. And I would have been very happy with you.
>
> But, Kevin, thank you for being here. You understand that very well, right? It bothers me when Germany and other countries are getting paid to borrow money. This is one - I don't know where that all leads, but we have to pay. We're the number one in the world, by far, and we have to pay for our money. Our interest rates are set high by the Fed. Our dollar is very high, and - relatively speaking. But when other countries get - literally, they're under. They have negative rates - meaning, they're under. They get paid. I love this. This concept is incredible. Again, you don't know where the hell it leads. But you borrow money, and when you have to pay it back, they pay you. This is one that I like very much. And I'm going to talk to you about that, Lou Dobbs.
>
> So we're set at two. Tell me, why are we paying and other countries are getting money when they get paid back? I really want to know: Who are the people that buy this stuff? Who puts money into something when they say, "This is a guaranteed loss"? But that's a whole different group of people than I know.

Quite a story there for Kevin Warsh! [[During and in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Warsh was a governor of the Federal Reserve System, and acted as the central bank's primary liaison to Wall Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Warsh)]

> TRUMP: Glenn Youngkin, of Carlyle. [Carlyle Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carlyle_Group). Great group.

Also present at the signing was Kenneth Berntsen - the chairman of the [Engage China Coalition](http://engagechina.com/2020/02/engage-china-coalition-regarding-china-phase-one-trade-agreement-and-financial-services/). That's a group of financial industry heavyweights who've been trying for years to pry open the door to the Chinese market. Up until now, they haven't had much luck. Even though China's the world's second-largest economy, Bentsen says U.S. financial firms make only about $2 billion a year there, less than a third what they make in Brazil and about 1.5% of what they make in Europe.

The Engage China Coalition:

American Bankers Association

American Council of Life Insurers

American Property Casualty Insurance Association

BAFT (Bankers Association for Finance and Trade)

The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers

The Financial Services Forum

The Futures Industry Association

Insured Retirement Institute

Investment Company Institute

Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association

The Trade Agreement Itself - Chapter 4 Financial Services

[Some analysts have said that financial services was the clear winner of the trade agreement](https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/797098404/u-s-financial-services-industry-emerges-as-%20%20a-winner-of-u-s-china-trade-deal). And I can see why given the changes actually demanded. [Here is the full text](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/agreements/phase%20one%20%20%20agreement/Economic_And_Trade_Agreement_Between_The_United_States_And_China_Text.pdf) of chapter 4 itself

[![r/DDintoGME - Citadel, China and The 45th - A Triangular Investigation Into "He's trying to hide some of his money"](https://preview.redd.it/956oetrnkj971.png?width=715&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf3cd92124b48eb70310fdfa58dfb08b88d34612)](https://preview.redd.it/956oetrnkj971.png?width=715&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf3cd92124b48eb70310fdfa58dfb08b88d34612)

[![r/DDintoGME - Citadel, China and The 45th - A Triangular Investigation Into "He's trying to hide some of his money"](https://preview.redd.it/n1mef1gokj971.png?width=748&format=png&auto=webp&s=3caca5e4df26ca4370b36cdc6bebc38ac62f3b9c)](https://preview.redd.it/n1mef1gokj971.png?width=748&format=png&auto=webp&s=3caca5e4df26ca4370b36cdc6bebc38ac62f3b9c)

[![r/DDintoGME - Citadel, China and The 45th - A Triangular Investigation Into "He's trying to hide some of his money"](https://preview.redd.it/ee7pqj4pkj971.png?width=743&format=png&auto=webp&s=aaa276e1b863139834548e2348d76f25e99d5ce1)](https://preview.redd.it/ee7pqj4pkj971.png?width=743&format=png&auto=webp&s=aaa276e1b863139834548e2348d76f25e99d5ce1)

[![r/DDintoGME - Citadel, China and The 45th - A Triangular Investigation Into "He's trying to hide some of his money"](https://preview.redd.it/sd15xbvpkj971.png?width=738&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b4fc9dfe0d9587b64c376d5c9bfae5c01b813fa)](https://preview.redd.it/sd15xbvpkj971.png?width=738&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b4fc9dfe0d9587b64c376d5c9bfae5c01b813fa)

The agreement itself allows major US expansion into the Chinese markets, and overall - it seems like a clear win for the US.

Trade Agreement Summary

So looking back at all the finance professionals Trump spoke to, did you notice anything strange? Ken was the only finance-related attendee Trump didn't praise. In fact it looks like out of everyone spoken about, Ken was the only one not being praised. This is unusual for Trump, because he usually praises everyone, a lot. Unless he does not like someone.

So why did Ken Griffin not turn up, when all the other financial industry professionals did? Did he know that Trump was going to say something provocative, or was it something else?

If the Engage China Coalition and other finance folks were so pleased with the trade agreement, how could Ken Griffin be upset about it? This trade agreement is supposed to be good for the US financial industry access to Chinese markets...

And why did Citadel Securities pay their $97 Million fine only 3 business days later after this trade agreement? They've been locked out of China for almost 5 years - surely they would've done it sooner if they could? Or if the trade agreement was necessary for Citadel to regain access, why didn't Ken turn up to say thanks?

However before we dig deeper into this trade agreement, Citadel's fine and the Trump / Griffin relationship we need to go all the way back to the beginning of this story.

Citadel Securities in China

Under previous Chinese laws - foreign companies had to partner with local companies to operate in China. Citadel Securities opened Citadel Shanghai Trading Ltd in 2010, and parterned with Guosen Securities who managed their trading account.

[In June 2015, the Chinese stock markets were devastated with a large crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_Chinese_stock_market_turbulence), wiping nearly $5 Trillion of value out at the bottom. By July, the Shanghai stock market was down 30%, and more than half of listed companies had filed for trading halts in an attempt to prevent further losses. By August 2015, stock prices had dropped a total of 43 percent.

Chinese regulators began to crack down on abusive market practices, and Citadel was the first to be caught. Starting at the beginning 2015, Citadel is accused of using deceptive and illegal trading practices in order to manipulate stock prices. Citadel was accused variously of "co-ordinated stock dumping", "selling-off of heavily weighted stocks", automated, algorithm-driven trading, spoofing, and of course - "malicious short-selling". Their account held by Guosen was banned.

["The regulator alleged that Citadel Securities controlled and used accounts set up by four other firms to trade stocks during the first seven months of 2015 and said such behaviors were suspected of violating account and asset management rules without providing further details."](https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-a-four-year-freeze-citadel-securities-can-trade-again-in-china-11579526314)

["Chinese regulator, however, didn't ban the practice [short selling] entirely, but after the scrutiny, investors can't sell and then buy shares back the same day. Instead, they must now wait after completion of a short sale transaction until at least the next day to repurchase."](https://www.financemagnates.com/institutional-forex/regulation/citadel-securities-fined-97m-in-china-for-malicious-short-selling/)

This restriction (if true, I can't read Chinese) implies that shares were being traded back and forth between the same parties multiple times a day. This is textbook [wash trading](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washtrading.asp), which rose to prominence in 2013 in Western markets.

["The tiff doesn't end there for Citadel. George Chen, managing editor of the international edition for the South China Morning Post, tweeted that a government-backed publication called ThePaper.cn was implying that Citadel advisor and former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke somehow knew that the high-frequency trading firm was shorting the market."](https://www.nexchangenow.com/news/11995/in-hunt-for-short-sellers-china-suspends-citadel-unit-from-trading-and-hints-advisor-bernanke-may-know-about-shorts/)

Goldman Sachs was also caught in this crackdown, and they were also banned from trading. Local Chinese firms were also caught as well, but generally emerged largely with miniscule fines and slaps on the wrist.

April 24th, 2019 it was announced Goldman Sachs had been cleared by the China Securities Regulatory Commission [CSRC], with a fine of $22.93 Million. In late 2019 the CSRC began to reconcile with Citadel, and only on January 20th 2020 (after the signing of the Trade agreement) - was it announced Citadel had settled for $97 Million. According to a somewhat opaque statement released by the CSRC on January 20, the settlement for Citadel Securities was "based on differing circumstances, such as the amount of money made through the suspected illegal acts,"

In summary for this section, Citadel was caught in China performing many of their tricks, and based on the timing - it seems likely they were unbanned only with US government intervention in late 2019 / early 2020, around the time of the U.S. - China Trade Agreement Phase One. So if Citadel was unbanned from their planned expansion in China, why did Ken snub Trump, and why did Trump not praise Ken? It's time to take a look at the Ken Griffin & Trump relationship.

Ken Griffin & Trump's Relationship

It's difficult to find much on their relationship, and I've pieced together what I can from a few events.

[Ken Griffin donated $1.55M in 2012 to Romney's campaign.](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/megadonors-like-ken-griffin-peter-thiel-keep-their-wallets-closed-for-trump.html)

[In 2016 - he donated $2.6M to Rubio, rather than Trump.](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/meet-the-gop-mega-donors-of-the-2016-election-223992/)

[Griffin did give $100,000 to Trump's 2017 inauguration though - a relatively low amount.](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/steve-cohen-1m-trump-donation-930890)

[Ken Griffin was hosted at a private donor's dinner later (probably in 2017) by Pence](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341196-pence-holding-private-donor-dinners-at-vice-presidents-residence)

In 2018, Ken Griffin began to speak out against Trump's policies, notably criticizing Trump's criticism of J-Pow & Fed policies , and also criticizing the tariff war escalation with China.

[In this interview on Delivering Alpha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIIFm2kmif0), Ken is asked what are his thoughts on the Administration's trade policies with China. Ken pauses briefly, shifts his gaze downwards, and then using a hand gesture, a gulp, begins to try and explain using his nicest words, how Trump is doing a great job with the trade war "Trump unquestionably has the right mission on trade", but that Ken doesn't really understand how the negotiations are going, and suspects they are very complicated. He makes a comment about how he would never have so many active 'fronts' open, and would close some of them. When asked directly, he refuses to comment on whether he thinks Trump is doing a good job. It seems relatively clear to me that he's having difficulty delivering his words with convicition. Then for his final words Ken regains his speaking conviction, and clearly tears down the idea that tariffs are good.

In 2016, Ken Griffin made a total political donations of only $11.2 Million (to Republican-allied super PACs). In 2018, it was $19.2 Million.

In 2020, Ken Griffin donated a whopping $66 Million to Republican-allied super PACs! [In fact, Ken Griffin came in at number 4 on the individual donors list for the 2020 election cycle.](https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2020&disp=D&type=V&superonly=N)

Also in March 2020, Ken Griffin advised President Trump on how to open up the economy after Covid, along with other finance professionals (e.g. Steve Cohen).

In summary for this section, I don't think Trump & Griffin saw eye to eye on many issues, or even had a friendly relationship. However it's very clear, especially towards the end of 2020, they had a working relationship, and that Ken Griffin bet very heavily on a 2nd Trump term - which we can assume would be greatly beneficial for Citadel.

I didn't get time to look into Jay Clayton (Trump's SEC chairman appointee), and who Clayton's changes at the SEC benefitted - but suspect this would be a fruitful thing to investigate.

Bringing It All Together

So I hope I have covered somewhat the Citadel, China & Trump triangle. In the first section, we saw that it was unusual how Trump addressed Griffin versus other attendees, and that Griffin had a lot to gain from this trade deal.

In the second section, we learned about Citadel's ban from trading in China, and how their unbanning seemed to also follow the trade deal - even more reason for Griffin to be pleased, and more curious that he didn't appear.

In the third section, we learned a bit about Ken Griffin's and Trump's relationship, and how even though they were not close friends, they had developed a significant working relationship and Griffin *heavily* bet on Trump winning the 2020 election.

In short - what I have uncovered is mostly that Ken Griffin had a lot to gain from Trump's China trade deal, and I can't make any sense of why he snubbed the signing ceremony, or wasn't praised by Trump. That's it - that's my point.

Speculation Section

So what else could make sense then? Well what if when Trump mentioned that Ken wants to hide his money, he wasn't talking about money. Ken wanted to hide his trades.

Well looky here what dropped onto the Federal register on the Monday before the signing ceremony. Sweeping changes to the National Market System (Reg NMS II) that make market-making less profitable for entities such as Citadel and Virtu, and also make PFOF more difficult.

<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/14/2020-00358/joint-industry-plan-notice-of-filing-of-the-forty-seventh-amendment-to-the-joint-self-regulatory>

<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/14/2020-00359/consolidated-tape-association-notice-of-filing-of-the-thirty-third-substantive-amendment-to-the>

<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/14/2020-00363/consolidated-tape-association-notice-of-filing-of-the-thirtieth-substantive-amendment-to-the-second>

<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/14/2020-00357/joint-industry-plan-notice-of-filing-of-the-forty-fourth-amendment-to-the-joint-self-regulatory>

<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/14/2020-00360/notice-of-proposed-order-directing-the-exchanges-and-the-financial-industry-regulatory-authority-to>

Odd lots are a very important part of these change proposals, and here I link the submissions that Citadel (and by contract, Blackrock) made on them. I believe Odd lots to be an integral part of how Citadel hides trades, and will be writing more about them in a further DD.

<https://www.theice.com/publicdocs/SIP_Comment_Citadel_redacted.pdf>

<- Citadel commenting on Odd lot NMS proposal

<https://www.theice.com/publicdocs/BlackRock_Odd_Lot_Proposal_December_3_2019.pdf>

<- Blackrock comments on Odd lots NMS proposal

I have briefly covered these changes before in this [DD](https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/n90gg4/sec_release_3490610_aka_nms20_effective_june_8/), but basically the NMS II from what I can tell - contains multiple changes that would hurt Citadel's business model. What I'm suggesting is that Ken Griffin was annoyed with Trump that Jay Clayton & the SEC was making changes beneficial to other market participants, to Citadel's detriment. This DD is all circumstantial evidence, as I realized it was becoming too large to attach to the main DD, which will be focused more on mechanisms rather than trying to discover motivations & allegiances from public information.

To be continued.

Miscellaneous references

<https://www.reuters.com/article/china-regulator-goldman-idUSH9N22400P>

<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hedgefunds-deliveringalpha-citadel-idUSKBN1K8252>

<https://www.pressreader.com/china/global-times/20170526/282119226489179>

<https://www.reuters.com/article/china-regulator-goldman-idUSH9N22400P>

<https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Stocks/Stock-falls-after-admission-of-probe>

<https://www.reuters.com/article/china-guosen-president-idUSL3N12N3QF20151023>

<https://www.scmp.com/business/markets/article/1846104/us-hedge-fund-citadel-banned-share-trading-shanghai-account>

<https://supchina.com/2020/02/04/was-chinas-97-million-fine-for-u-s-hedge-fund-citadel-politically-motivated/>

<https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-a-four-year-freeze-citadel-securities-can-trade-again-in-china-11579526314>
