Did Shortsellers Trade on Advance Knowledge of October 7 Terrorist Attack?

A study by Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School and Robert J. Jackson Jr. of NYU Law School found unusually high levels of short-selling activity on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in advance of the October 7 terrorist attack, prompting speculation that Iran or Hamas used advance knowledge of the attack to reap profits. The Israeli business newspaper Globes quotes the head of trading for TASE, Yaniv Pagot, describing the study as seriously flawed, both in terms of a math error with decimal places and in terms of the feasibility of such a large trade by terrorist-linked traders going undetected. "There could not be such a scenario. It is regrettable that the researchers did not check with Israeli TASE members and they could have asked how these things work in Israel," Pagot is quoted by Globes as saying.