Pezeshkian and Putin stood in front of microphones and condemned the economic restrictions that have defined their entire trade policy for the last decade. They asked BRICS nations to deepen economic ties. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, plus a few countries they added later because acronyms are apparently negotiable now.
The irony here is thick enough to trade on margin. Iran has been under sanctions since before most retail traders were born. Russia joined the club in 2014 and went all-in during 2022. Now both countries want to build a sanctions-proof economic bloc with nations that still do billions in trade with the West. Nothing says "independent economic powerhouse" like begging other countries to accept your increasingly worthless currency.
Putin criticized Western economic policy while his own economy runs on oil sales priced in the very currencies he claims to hate. Pezeshkian nodded along, representing a country whose stock market is accessible to approximately seven foreign investors and a guy in Dubai with a really good VPN.
The technical setup here is flawless. Two leaders who can't access SWIFT want to create an alternative financial system. The price action suggests this will work exactly as well as every other time someone tried to build a dollar replacement. Spoiler: it closed below the 200-day moving average before the press conference ended.
Retail traders are already scanning for "BRICS ETF" on their brokerage apps, unaware that most of these countries would rather trade with Connecticut than with each other.
The real tell is that deepening economic ties means "please buy our stuff because nobody else will." When your best trading partners are the other kids who got detention, your export strategy needs work.
Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash
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