Ethics filings show Trump's managers sold up to $25 million each of Amazon and Microsoft in July

Office of Government Ethics rules require the president to disclose this account's trades ^[1]. Spread over the 19 months from January 2025 through July 2026, the disclosed count comes to about 1,510 trades a month ^[1], assuming the tally runs through July. On that basis July was a slower month than usual, roughly 23% below the account's average pace ^[4].

Added together, the Amazon and Microsoft sales come to somewhere between $10 million and $50 million ^[2]. The top of each disclosure band is five times its floor ^[3]. The filing fixes the order of magnitude and leaves the dollar amount open. The Fool's report does not include trade dates, prices, remaining holdings or what the proceeds bought ^[1].

If a computer model placed these sales ^[4], each one tells you less than its size suggests. An account trading about 1,500 times a month ^[1] sells large positions as a matter of routine. Two sales in one month are thin evidence of anyone's view on artificial intelligence.

The Fool offers a view anyway. "Profit-taking is likely part of the answer, but perhaps not all of it," the article said ^[7], before turning to the history of technology bubbles and what it called the second-priciest stock market in history ^[8]. It cited a July 11 Barchart post saying the Shiller PE ratio was "on the verge of taking out its Dot Com Bubble all-time high" ^[9]. It also said Amazon and Microsoft are each cheaper than other Magnificent Seven stocks ^[10].

The businesses being sold were growing faster. Azure's sales growth jumped to 43% in Microsoft's fiscal fourth quarter to June 30 ^[6]. Fiscal.ai posted the AWS result on July 30 ^[11], so any sale earlier in July happened before that growth rate was public.

Three readings fit the July record. The model may have trimmed two holdings for its own reasons and will buy them back as its index requires, in which case later filings will show purchases of the same names. The managers may have made a deliberate call on AI valuations, as the Fool suggests, and that would show up as continued selling across other large AI holdings. Or the sales may net against purchases of the same stocks elsewhere among July's trades.

I think the first reading fits best. The only process reported for this account is a computer model ^[4], and at about 1,500 trades a month ^[1] a pair of large sales is ordinary. That view is wrong if the August and September filings show no buybacks in either stock alongside large sales of other AI names.