It’s impossible to decide who to believe and trust right now.
Trading feels like an impossible battle of fighting the propaganda departments of Iran, the USA and Israel. Trump himself is a shameless information manipulator and this entire war was started during the same kind of ‘talks’ that are supposedly going on now. On the Iran side, it’s entirely unclear who is in charge and officials everywhere have claimed Mojtaba Khamenei is either dead or badly injured.
Yet we’re supposed to believe a report in an Israeli newspaper — citing unnamed sources — that he approved negotiations with the US to end the war?
Mojtaba Khamenei
At the same time, Trump delayed a self-imposed 48 hour deadline that he set. But the deadline was set while negotiations had already started, according to Trump’s own timeline of events?
And the cherry on top is that the 5-day timeline ends when markets close on Friday and just as US marines are set to arrive in the region.
Meanwhile, we hear about Iran’s terms to end the war and they are way beyond what the US (or anyone) might accept. They’re acting like their either 1) winner the war, or 2) read to fight for many months.
Now Iran has been hit with 9000 strikes, which is an extraordinary amount of firepower. That compares to the 8-12,000 missiles that Russia has fired in the entire Ukraine war. It’s an overwhelming force so maybe they are trying to negotiate and save face.
In it all, the market appears to be showing increasing skepticism that we’re heading for a solution. S&P 500 futures are down 0.6% and near a session low just ahead of the open. Treasury yields are higher across the curve again today, with 2s up 7.5 bps to 3.90%. Nearly everyone thinks oil is being manipulated but WTI is still up $3.75 to $91.88.
Now we will settle in and wait for another day of tweets, leaks and ‘sources’ reports and try to find a silver of truth in some of it.
Right now this seems to be the only way to trade:
