The U.S. and Iran fired missiles at each other over the Strait of Hormuz. Traders immediately checked if this meant oil stocks go up or if they should panic-sell everything and buy gold. The answer was yes.
Both sides claim the other started it. Both sides claim they won. Both sides released grainy footage that could have been filmed on a Nokia flip phone in 2003. The Strait of Hormuz handles about 21 million barrels of oil per day, which matters tremendously until you realize retail traders think OPEC is a brand of gum.
Some guy named Derek in Ohio saw the headline and bought shares of a tanker company that went bankrupt in 2019. He's down 40% but holding because he read on Reddit that geopolitical tensions are bullish for shipping. Derek does not know where the Strait of Hormuz is. Derek could not find Iran on a map if you gave him three guesses and a globe. Derek just bought more.
The missiles accomplished nothing except providing B-roll footage for cable news. The drones accomplished even less. The claims and counterclaims accomplished the least of all. Markets moved 0.3% in both directions depending on which tweet you read first, then closed flat because none of this f*cking matters.
Oil prices spiked for eleven minutes. Then someone remembered the U.S. has its own oil now. Then someone else remembered nobody cares. Then everyone went back to trading based on whether Jerome Powell raised his left eyebrow or his right eyebrow during his last speech.
The real victims here are the swing traders who set stop-losses based on geopolitical risk models they downloaded from a YouTube video. They got stopped out at the bottom, watched the market recover, then bought back in at the top. A tale as old as time itself.
Derek's still holding though. He thinks this is his Pearl Harbor moment. It's not.
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