The United States military bombed Iranian coastal surveillance and air defense facilities after Iran killed two American service members in Jordan. Centcom issued a statement. Markets did not move.
Someone sat in a briefing room and decided the appropriate response to two dead troops was to hit radar stations and SAM sites along Iran's coast. Proportional, they called it. Measured. The kind of word you use when you're describing a kitchen remodel, not a retaliatory strike that could spiral into a regional war that sends oil to $150 a barrel.
Retail traders saw the headline and immediately started buying defense contractor shares at 9:31 AM, convinced they'd discovered alpha. They had not discovered alpha. They discovered that Lockheed Martin's IV was already priced for a ground invasion of Tehran and three carrier groups in the Strait of Hormuz. By 9:47 AM, half of them were stopped out. By 10:15, they were posting screenshots of their losses on Twitter with captions about how the market is rigged.
The strikes targeted facilities used for surveillance. Cameras, essentially. We bombed Iran's doorbell camera because they killed two of our guys. This is the geopolitical equivalent of keying someone's car after they punched your friend in the face. It makes a point. The point is unclear.
Iran will respond or it won't. Oil will spike or it won't. The VIX will gap up Monday or it'll fade by lunch. None of this information will help you make money. You will still check your portfolio eight times before breakfast and wonder why your calls on a leveraged ETF you can't pronounce are down 40% in a week.
Two families are planning funerals while you're Googling whether war is bullish for small-cap industrials.
Photo by Saifee Art on Unsplash
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