Iran announced it has a new operational plan in case the U.S. resumes attacks. The Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei made the statement while shipping vessels reported strikes. This is how geopolitical tensions work. One side says they have a plan. The other side probably also has a plan. Everyone has plans.
Retail traders saw this headline and immediately opened their Robinhood apps to buy defense contractor calls. They will lose money. They always lose money. But this time they'll lose it while feeling like geopolitical strategists who cracked the code on Middle East conflict escalation. They didn't crack anything. They can't even crack their own password reset questions.
The operational plan could mean anything. New missiles. New drones. New strongly worded statements. Iran says it's ready. The U.S. presumably also ready. Shipping vessels getting hit. Oil markets doing whatever oil markets do when this happens. And somewhere in Missouri a guy named Derek just bought 47 shares of an energy ETF he can't pronounce because a Discord moderator told him tensions equal tendies.
Here's what the operational plan won't include: a detailed briefing for Derek. He'll find out the same time everyone else does. By then his position will already be underwater because he bought at the top of the fear spike and sold at the bottom of the relief rally. Classic Derek.
The Supreme National Security Council spent months preparing strategic military contingencies. Derek spent four minutes reading a headline before clicking market buy. Only one of these groups understands what they're doing, and it's not the one using terms like "operational plan" to check if their brokerage app accepts fractional shares of Raytheon.
Photo by Amin Zand Miralvand on Unsplash
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