# Did American Airlines put options go up just before 9/11/2001 and if so why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328 "2007-02-23T02:57:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aluminumdisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@aluminumdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aluminumdisc)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328/1 "2007-02-23T02:57:55Z")
I just watched the internet phenom Loose Change and have looked up some of their “facts” to see that many have holes that you could drive a truck through . I have not seen the American Airlines put options between September 6th and 10th tidbit addressed. Did put options increase during this time and if so why? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328/2 "2007-02-23T03:12:21Z")
[False, according to Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp). There was some trading activity in the shares of American and United, but the sources of the trades were investigated and found not to have any connexion with al-Qaeda. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328/3 "2007-02-23T03:14:17Z")
[Snopes say no ultimately although some of the types of trading claimed did happen for other reasons.](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp) ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328/4 "2007-02-23T03:19:12Z")
What month contracts are you looking at? You’re probably thinking that ‘someone’ knew about Sept. 11 and either shorted AMR or bought put options. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328/5 "2007-02-23T03:27:27Z")
[Loose Change is a bunch of absolute nonsense.](http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/) Taking _anything_ in that misbegotten piece of trash seriously is a mistake. [Here is a much longer page on the subject, which takes the video apart piece by piece.](http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html) ---
**Author:** ![aluminumdisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@aluminumdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aluminumdisc)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-airlines-put-options-go-up-just-before-9-11-2001-and-if-so-why/393328/6 "2007-02-23T03:52:08Z")
[QUOTE=dalej42] What month contracts are you looking at? You’re probably thinking that ‘someone’ knew about Sept. 11 and either shorted AMR or bought put options. [/QUOTE] That is what the film alleges, yes. It’s a conspiracy theory documentary that I had read about a couple of places. So I watched it from soup to nuts knowing that it was filled with factual errors. This is one thing that I had not seen addressed anywhere and forgot about Snopes.