Transcription
So, we are in the middle of a major geopolitical crisis with the Iran, US conflict, and as always in these moments, we have markets panicking, media going wild, and most investors and traders losing money in the market. And as a professional trader with 12 years of experience, if I've learned one thing, it's that every crisis, without exception, creates enormous opportunities. The important thing is to know where to look in these moments. And today, in this video, that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to ignore the noise, everyone's opinions on social media, and we're going to focus on the real facts. So, before going into the details, I first want to recontextualize this conflict for you from the beginning in a simple way. We have February 28th, which is the day the US decides to launch Operation Epic Fury, which begins the bombings on Iran. The official American reason for this operation is to neutralize Iran's nuclear program because diplomacy didn't work. So now, we're sending missiles. Now, what poisoned things was obviously Iran's response. Iran responded militarily but also by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Literally the most important point for oil shipments. And so today, as I'm recording this video, it's Friday, March 13th, the 13th day of this conflict. The Strait of Hormuz is almost at a standstill, and the overall situation is very tense. So now that you have a summary of this beginning of the conflict, let's look at the current situation. And to do that, I don't want us to immediately study the prices of different assets, but I first want us to study the sentiment, the overall market sentiment, because sometimes that's more telling. So, at the time I'm making this video, the latest news is that the United States has tried to de-escalate. Okay? The United States sent Marco Rubio to try to negotiate a ceasefire with Iran. Problem is, Iran didn't even respond. So, following this small failure, the United States decided to go through France as a mediator. To go through France to talk to Iran and ask them if perhaps we could have a ceasefire and stop sending missiles. To which Iran responded this time that their objectives were not yet achieved. And so, what does this information mean? It means that Iran has a plan, and this plan could go far beyond military operations, but rather aim for a potential long-term energy crisis with oil prices well above. And for now, well, all the latest developments lead us to believe that Iran is even prepared to suffer to achieve this goal. We also have diplomats, Arab mediators, who are in the neighboring Gulf countries trying to find a diplomatic solution. But these neighboring Arab countries, unlike the United States, which can go and [expletive] up the situation in the Gulf, and they are far away and on the other side of the Atlantic, well, the Arab Gulf countries are neighbors to Iran, and so they are also taking a beating due to their indirect alliance with the United States, whether it's at a business level or the fact that they allow the United States to have military bases in their country. But so, all this to say that for them, the situation is also very complicated to try to find an agreement. So, the current sentiment is this. The United States wants to de-escalate. Iran doesn't even want to negotiate, and Iran seems to have a plan in mind. And if we look at the Fear and Greed Index, particularly on the S&P 500, we can see that it is in extreme fear. However, what we also see is that at the time I'm making this video, the markets, the S&P 500 index, is 5% down from its all-time highs. Which, when we look at the overall situation, and by the way, at the beginning of the week, we were only at -2.5%. Okay? Honestly, that's a very small drop. Honestly, that's very little when you start to price in everything that could potentially happen. So, for now, despite the tensions, this correction is no different from corrections we've seen in November 2025, or even the drop caused by Trump's tariffs in April 2025, which this time went down by -20%. I remind you, we are currently only at -5%. And so now, as an investor and as a trader, you need to know where to look and, above all, how to ignore the noise. We are currently seeing a lot of noise, fake news being spread, false images. Okay? I don't know if you've seen it, an Iranian on a flying carpet attacking jets. That's a real image. But more seriously, we have all this content whose sole purpose is to make us react and create confusion. And let's say that if we follow this information, it's just noise. Or if we try to follow what Trump tells us, literally 95% of it is noise. We could even call it a bit of market manipulation in his case. But so, faced with this situation, we have two choices. Either we focus precisely on the noise, we scroll on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok, we react to every headline, and we end up doing what the majority of people do. Or we take a step back, we focus solely on the real facts, what we can quantify, measure, and on which we can base a real analysis. Personally, I choose the second option. And to do that, we will focus on three facts. The first is that at the time I'm recording this video, everything revolves around oil prices. Everything. Right now, the only chart you should have open on your screens is oil prices. Everything else is just a consequence of the evolution of oil prices. Currently, to illustrate this, I'm going to show you the oil prices. This is the evolution of oil prices over this past week. Okay? Now, what I've done is I've added other assets on top of it. No, no, it's not the same oil price with other lines of different colors. No, no, what you see here in orange, okay, on this line, is the oil prices. Okay? Now, what you see in pink, so this line here that perfectly follows the movements of the oil price, is the inverse of the S&P 500. So, it's what's called 1 divided by S&P 500. So, you might ask why the inverse? Because the S&P 500 is currently completely correlated to oil, but inversely. That is to say, when oil goes up, the S&P 500 crashes. But so, on my graph here, you wouldn't necessarily see the correlation, but to show it to you more clearly, instead of showing you the S&P 500, I'm showing you the inverse of the S&P 500. And so, to do the inverse of a formula, we just do 1 divided by the unit. So, 1 divided by S&P 500. You can see the correlation is perfect. Now, we can also see the correlation with the DXY, the dollar index. We can see that when oil falls, the dollar falls. When oil rises, the dollar rises. And obviously, it's exactly the same with the US 10-year yields, which, as we generally know, US yields are correlated to the dollar and therefore inevitably correlated to oil. Hence the reason why I tell you the most important chart, the most important asset price to watch right now, is the price of oil. And that's why I always say in my videos, if you haven't watched all my videos, go watch them right away on my YouTube channel, but as a trader or investor, even if you're focused on one asset class, say you only trade Forex, it's very important and crucial to be able to analyze and look at other asset classes to understand what's happening in yours. Why? Because finance is a world of interconnection, okay? All markets are interconnected with each other. So, the evolution of oil prices will impact the Forex market, as we can see for example here with the dollar. I'll even go further. Okay? We generally know that gold is a safe haven, but currently, at the time I'm recording this video, gold is behaving like a risk asset. And again, I've gone to show you. So, right here, we have all our correlations, as I showed you just here with oil, the inverse of the S&P because the S&P is a risk asset. Okay? The dollar and the US 10-year. And what I've added here in red this time, and you can see the correlation is just as perfect, is gold. Again, here, since it's behaving like a risk asset, I've done 1 divided by the price of gold, and that gives us this chart which again shows the correlation with oil. So, one of the things to consider is if you actively trade in the markets, don't go take a long position on oil, a short position on gold, a short position on the S&P thinking you're taking different trades because, as you can see, it's exactly the same thing. So, be very careful not to overexpose yourself by mistake. Now, the second fact we are seeing is an aggressive repricing of rates by all global central banks. And this, obviously, is a direct consequence of my first point, which is the evolution of oil prices. Just a month ago, the world was betting on rate cuts from most major central banks. But due to the increase in oil prices, this scenario is dead. The market has done what's called a repricing, so with expectations of higher rates, and we can see this here. So, you can see that this is a comparison between today and a week ago. A week ago, expectations for rate changes were much more dovish, so bearish, compared to now. And we see exactly the same scenario with, so this was the Fed, but we see the same scenario with the Bank of England here, where we saw rates that were going to be neutral. Now, it's expected that rates will increase this year, 2026. We see the same thing with the ECB, we see the same thing with the Bank of Canada, we see the same thing with the RBA, which has always been one of the most hawkish central banks we've seen. By the way, the information I'm sharing with you here on the future evolution of central bank rates is available on software that I'm part of the design team for. I'll put the link in the description if you're interested. But if we look closely at these evolutions, we can see, particularly with the Fed, the most important central bank in our world, that we are currently at rates that are roughly at 3.63%. And if we look at December 2026, the end of the year, we expect to have rates at 3.53%, which is a decrease of 0.10, or even less than a 25 basis point cut. So, in short, this year, traders, investors, at least on the interest rate market, expect no rate cuts from the Fed. This is literally a 180-degree turn. And all this because the market is starting to realize that inflation could make a comeback. And now, to explain the macro chain simply of why we are seeing higher rate expectations, you need to understand a fairly simple mechanism. When oil prices rise, the cost of energy explodes, whether it's fuel, gasoline, or even electricity. So, this explosion in energy costs causes inflation because all products that are created depend on these energy costs. So, absolutely everything you buy increases in price, and thus inflation arrives. And central banks, which were ready to cut rates, find themselves completely stuck because to combat this inflation, they are forced to do the opposite, i.e., raise interest rates. And it is precisely this macroeconomic information chain that is driving the entire market right now. Everything else, literally, is noise. So now that you understand this, the million-dollar question is, obviously, will oil prices continue to rise, or will they return to normal and fall? Honestly, no one has the answer, but I'll present my little theory. I think the US wanted to do a quick spectacle war like they did in Venezuela by capturing Maduro. They wanted to do the same thing in Iran, and it didn't go as planned. I think the US underestimated Iran's determination and resilience and how potentially ready Iran was for this conflict for years. I think the United States wanted to do a quick operation, a show of force. And in my opinion, I think Iran is today playing a much longer chess game. I think their goal is not military, but economic. Their goal is to hurt the West. It's to make the West pay by causing an energy crisis to then be in a position of strength to negotiate. So, personally, I lean more towards a scenario where tensions could last much longer than expected. And at the time I'm making this video, so Friday, March 13th, we had Donald Trump on Monday saying that this war should end soon. And to my great surprise, investors and traders believed him. We also saw the S&P rally, and I used this S&P rally to open short positions because, personally, I don't think this information is true, and I don't believe it at all because, yes, obviously analysis is good, my opinion is good, but acting is better, and as a trader, of course, I will act on my own reflections, my own thoughts, and what the markets are giving me as potential opportunities for potential mispricing that I am able to recognize. And for me, if we see a continuation of tensions, there are two ways to play it. For me, the first way is to hedge. Okay? So, if you already have a large stock portfolio and you are already heavily exposed to US stock indices, find ways to hedge yourself, so to cover your positions. Currently, if we have a scenario where tensions continue, it could be smart, it could be intelligent. Hedging yourself on US stock indices, so basically taking short positions, allows you to not sell your positions that you might have in long-term investment DCA on stocks, but rather to, in quotes, buy potential insurance. That way, if the market falls, your long-term portfolio takes a hit, but this hit is offset by profits you make from shorting the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq or the Dow Jones, I don't know what you have. The second way now is a bit more directional. That is to say, you are not necessarily in a situation where you are overexposed to the US stock market, but you voluntarily decide to position yourself in a directional way, particularly by shorting indices to profit from a potential drop if oil prices remain high for a long time and risk sentiment weighs on stock indices, which, at the time I'm making this video, as I said, haven't crashed that much. And by the way, to be honest, this current situation doesn't surprise me that much. For those who have been following me for a while, you might remember a video I posted at the beginning of 2026, a video that is displayed right here, where I shared my expectations for the stock market in 2026, and I did a complete analysis of macroeconomic valuation, positioning, sentiment, etc., and I had a very clear vision. Again, I invite you to go watch the video. But all I want to say is that potentially this geopolitical crisis could be the catalyst. Now, in addition to these opportunities, I think we could also see opportunities arise in the energy commodity complex, more or less related and especially correlated to oil. I was even able to share this week with traders who are members of the Macro Trader Accelerator a potential opportunity on an energy commodity. I'll put the link in the description where you can simply go to my Instagram Elliot and send me a message. Now, let's be clear, this video is in no way investment advice on what you should do or what you should do. I'm just sharing my personal opinion, and ultimately, as a trader, I've been wrong many times. But if there's one piece of advice I can give you today, it's to try not to focus on the noise, on the dramatic headlines, and be in the drama and be, let's say, emotionally attached to this conflict, but rather to manage to take a step back, reflect on the impact in 2 months, the impact in 6 months, the impact in 1 year. Okay? And not what Trump said today? 90% of it is noise. And your compass today is oil prices. This may change, but today, it's the most important asset. If you follow oil prices, you will understand the macro logical chain we saw today. Oil, inflation, rates, impact on markets. So, I deliberately recorded this video quickly on Friday before it comes out on Sunday so that the information is as up-to-date as possible. In any case, let me know if you like this type of video. Tell me if you liked the analysis. Give it a like, leave a comment. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. And also, by the way, let me know if you think this setup is not bad. It's the first time I've done this setup, since the video was on the theme of conflict, I thought let's put weapons in the background, etc. My office is right here. But anyway, let me know, and at the same time, that way I'll know you've really watched the video to the end. Ciao.