Dirty trick or coincidence: Wall Street is looking for an explanation for the collapse of the giant

The theory identifies a particularly suspicious sequence of events.

On July 27, 2026, the company’s market-making arm, Citadel Securities, released an aggressive and surprising macroeconomic forecast.

The firm’s chief analyst, Frank Plate, predicted that the Fed would surprise the markets and raise interest rates the next day. The announcement made waves, sending bond yields soaring and increasing pressure and panic on technology and artificial intelligence stocks.

Two days later, on July 30, when Aschenbrenner’s leveraged fund collapsed under a deluge of margin calls, Citadel’s hedge fund arm stepped in and bought the bulk of Aschenbrenner’s public stock portfolio at a deep discount. Margin requirements is an immediate requirement on the part of the broker or bank to deposit additional money to the trading account when the value of the assets or securities falls below a minimum level.

Critics say the outlandish forecast was designed to ignite the exact panic that was needed to break the leveraged fund and force a liquidation sale.

An important caveat – there is no proof that Citadel performed deliberate manipulation. Even leading financial media such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, which covered the transaction, did not link the publication of the interest rate forecast with the purchase of the portfolio, and did not make claims of manipulation.

Chronologically, Aschenbrenner’s investor letters revealed that the fund was suffering catastrophic losses and margin calls as early as July 24 — three days before Citadel issued its report. Second, by law, the market-making arm and the hedge fund arm (both founded by Griffin) are separated by strict Chinese walls to prevent the transfer of information. In addition, Citadel’s interest rate forecast was not completely detached from reality, as three members of the Fed committee did vote for a rate hike that week.

THIS HAS TO BE THE STORY OF 2026

Ken Griffin’s Citadel was pushing surprise-rate-hike fears just days before the AI trade collapsed and forced 4x-levered Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness to unload his book near the lows.

Citadel then reportedly bought most of those… https://t.co/g1htbNOdoY pic.twitter.com/1FL6KUzEAf

— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) July 30, 2026

When Griffin “Smells Blood”

For Wall Street elders, Citadel’s move against Aschenbrenner sounds familiar.

Many remember the Melvin Capital case. However, even in that case, despite the public criticism and suspicions, it was not proven that Citadel acted illegally or coordinated moves to influence the market.

The Melvin Capital hedge fund fell into a catastrophic “short squeeze” in the stock Game stop Following a coordinated attack by retail investors from the Reddit forum, it lost about 53% of its value in a short time.

When the fund was on the brink of immediate liquidation by the banks, Griffin did not offer a financial lifeline out of kindness, but imposed tough conditions. Citadel (together with Point7) injected 2.75 billion dollars into the fund (of which 2 billion from Citadel alone).

In exchange for “breathing air”, Griffin did not buy ordinary shares, but demanded a direct and fixed share of Melvin’s revenue share for three years. He took advantage of the fact that his competitor had no other choice, to extract future profits at a floor price.

At the same time, Citadel Securities was Robinhood’s main market maker, which led to allegations of a conflict of interest when Robinhood restricted trading in Game Stop. These claims sparked investigations and hearings in the US Congress.

However, no evidence has been found that the Citadel influenced Robinhood’s decision to restrict trade. Ken Griffin and the heads of Robinhood denied any coordination, and the investigations did not establish that there was any manipulation.

In June 2022, Melvin Capital announced the closure of the fund after it was unable to recover from the losses caused by the Game in Stop case.

Just as it happened in 2021, in the events of July 2026 the mechanics remain the same.