MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle pulled back the curtain on Donald Trump’s “astounding investment activity” after a new financial disclosure revealed that the president made thousands of trades in the first quarter of 2026, many involving companies that have been directly influenced by his administration’s policies.
The “11th Hour” host shared a new analysis from Yahoo Finance that found the president made 94 different trades of “Magnificent Seven” stocks this year, amounting to millions of dollars in transactions. The Magnificent Seven represents the country’s tech giants, which make up as much as 35% of the S&P 500’s value.
According to the disclosure, which was filed with the Office of Government Ethics, the president’s portfolio included shares of Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Amazon. As Ruhle pointed out, these are “companies that the president and his administration were not only meeting with, but also promoting publicly.”
“When all was said and done, the trades were valued at between $50 [million] and $70 million across 64 buy orders and 30 stock sales,” the MS NOW host said.
That kind of activity would be unheard of during previous administrations, William D. Cohan, financial journalist and founding partner of Puck, told Ruhle. “Every other president in the history of the United States would have put this, his portfolio, in a blind trust, and you know, Donald Trump has not done any of that,” he said.
The president has insisted that his account is managed by his company, the Trump Organization, which told Yahoo Finance his trades are overseen by third-party financial institutions. “Neither President Trump, his family nor the Trump Organization plays any role in selecting, directing or approving specific investments,” a spokesperson said. “They receive no advance notice of trading activity and provide no input regarding investment decisions or portfolio management of any kind.”
Recommended
However, as The New York Times pointed out, there is no indication that a blind trust actually exists.
On Tuesday’s show, Ruhle said the trades were “just the tip of the iceberg when you really get down to the president’s conflicts of interest.”
The “11th Hour” host then listed off several other moves from the president and those close to him that have set off ethical alarm bells in recent months. “The Defense Department just inked a deal with a drone company backed by Eric and Don Jr.,” she said. “A firm in the United Arab Emirates has taken a $500 million stake in the Trump family cryptocurrency business. And the manager of Trump’s New Jersey golf club is reportedly helping plan the repairs of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.”
“We passed the idea of a conflict of interest,” Ruhle concluded.
You can watch Ruhle’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”