The Israel Securities Authority said Tuesday that it did not detect any suspicious trading activity in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange before Oct. 7 that requires further investigation.
An examination of the exchange immediately after the attack and a more recent review of its technological intelligence system several weeks ago did not produce any significant findings, the agency stated.
The findings still raise questions in the backdrop of new research from university law professors that shows an "unusual" spike before the attack in short selling in the most popular fund linked to Israeli companies.
While the ISA focused exclusively on Tel Aviv, the New York University and Columbia University study relied primarily on the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund, which is listed in New York.
However, The ISA and the preliminary NYU/Columbia study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, did diverge in at least one critical area.
The ISA claimed that the average short balances for shares traded in Tel Aviv declined during the period just before Oct. 7.
But the early NYU/Columbia results suggested that bets against Israeli securities traded in the same exchange "increased dramatically" in the days before the attack.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's head of trading told CNN that the confusion could be caused by the researchers incorrectly calculating the estimated profit by shorting one particular Israeli company.
"This is a flawed analysis from the outset, and there is a lack of understanding of how the local market operates," Yaniv Pagot said.
Neither the United States Securities and Exchange Commission nor the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have confirmed the existence or nonexistence of an ongoing investigation.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Luca Cacciatore ✉
Luca Cacciatore, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is based in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on news and politics.
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