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Comment by tfehring | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn’t put anything past them, but my impression is that they were just acting as a middleman for this transaction and taking a fee, rather than making a directional bet one way or another. Hedge funds have certainly been buying a lot of tariff claims, giving businesses guaranteed money upfront and betting on this outcome. But for an investment bank like Cantor Fitzgerald that would be atypical.

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> they were just acting as a middleman

This is no excuse. If they knew this would be a business, being a broker of such deals would be sure to make them money.

It’s not really excusing anything, just pointing out that Cantor Fitzgerald would be making money whether this Supreme Court ruling went for or against the Trump tariffs. So it’s not like they had to have any inside knowledge to be making money.

They do make more money the more pervasive tariffs are though as more people would buy tariff related financial products.

It's true that a volatile environment in general is good for certain types of investment banking business, including facilitating this trade. I nevertheless think it's unlikely - honestly, a galaxy brain take - that Cantor Fitzgerald or other investment banks with influence in the Trump administration would push for policies like unconstitutional tariffs just to drive trading revenue. Maybe the strongest reason is that other, frankly more lucrative investment banking activities, like fundraising and M&A, benefit from a growing economy and a stable economic and regulatory environment.

It stretches your imagination to conceive of a financier chasing short term gains over the long term stability of the investment bank they are part of? I seem to recall an event back in the late '00s that you may want to look into.

That's what a bookie does. Middleman.

If you are the risk and the insurance for that risk you aren’t a middle man you are the mob.

> my impression is

not sure why you'd give them any benefit of the doubt. they haven't earned it.

Ah yes, instead of applying the normal legal standard of “not even having the appearance of impropriety” we instead apply the monkey’s paw standard of waiting until they “no longer even have the appearance of propriety”.

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