Erlanger Squeeze Play, an advisory service for individual investors, is making available its charts of options and short selling in stocks that were directly harmed by the September 11th terrorist attacks — pointing to the possibility of terrorist profiteering from their advance knowledge of the attacks.

The charts illustrate options activity and short selling in AMR Corp., UAL Corp., Marriott International, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Hilton Hotels Corp., and Marsh & McLennan Companies.

“This unimaginable national tragedy may well have an emerging subplot involving one of the greatest swindles in stock market history,” says Phil Erlanger, a technical analyst. “From my perspective, it is very clear that there was highly unusual and suspicious activity in airline and hotel stocks in the days and weeks leading up to this attack.”

“A close look at the put and call activity in American Airlines reveals that the volume of both puts and calls spiked dramatically just prior to the attack,” he says. “A large amount of short selling and put buying also occurred in United Airlines, the other carrier targeted by the terrorists. It is extremely interesting to note the large, systematic purchases of puts in July, and again in August. Perhaps not coincidentally, there were similar large, systematic purchases of puts on American Airlines in this exact same time-frame in July, and again in August. Short interest also spiked unusually high in August on UAL.”

The stocks of major hotel chains also showed dramatic increases in short selling and put buying. And Marsh & McLennan, one of the firms hit hard by the attack also saw increased put buying.

“The question is now this: was this direct manipulation by terrorist organizations looking to reap a quick windfall from their criminal acts? That will be up to the world authorities to track down the specifics of this unusual activity. It should be possible to track the flow of orders very specifically, as every contract that changes hands in the options market leaves a distinct trail,” says Erlanger.