March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, or so the saying goes, while US stock markets getting ready to kick off trade for March, and we are looking at red as all eyes continue to be on the Middle East.
Now Stock futures are in the red while oil rallying.
Now attacks ongoing with the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other.
It is unclear who will lead Iran now after Operation Epic Fury took out the.
Ayatollah.
Now countries around the world are calling out Iran's longtime regime.
UK Prime Minister Starmer says that he had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, but will provide support to the US and Israel if needed, and the UK saying its bases will be used for defensive strikes.
Australia, as well as Albania and Canada have also voiced support, and several Middle Eastern countries have condemned Iran's missile strikes on their.
Countries, but Russia and China are speaking out in favor of Iran.
Well joining me to weigh in as we kick off the trading weekend, the trading month is Patrick Young, chairman and founder of Exchange Invest.
Patrick, good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It's another week, another month, and plenty of new developments here.
So in our recent conversations, you've been warning that this could happen to Iran's Supreme Leader.
So take us through your reaction and where do you think that the conflict in the Middle East goes from here.
Well, first of all, we've got to look at what happened.
Operation Epic Fury has been another demonstration of perfect American operations, and that's very, very important to say.
There have been many occasions in the past.
Good grief, look at Kabul just a few years ago, a total fiasco.
Therefore, Donald Trump has got to be very, very happy with the way that all of his subordinates performed.
We were quite clearly saying that Iran was coming next on the Trump playbook for some time.
It's a tragedy to see anybody's nation's leader being killed, but at the same time it's difficult to get overly worked up about somebody who believed in, well, a lot of precepts that we take for granted in the West, such as dealing with women and treating all humans equally, wasn't on the agenda of the previous Ayatollah.
Also interesting to see how Trump has managed to line this up.
He's not trying to put boots on the ground.
He's not trying to do another Iraq.
He's trying.
To stimulate the opposition within the country in order to go forward.
I'm sure that quite feasibly Israel have got people who are going to be on the ground trying to make sure that they get the right regime change, and it remains to be seen.
Will we even have regime change?
But looking at how the new world order has changed, look at what we saw from Venezuela at the weekend.
Venezuela, longtime ally of Iran, one of the few places that Iran Air actually flies direct to in the Americas.
And ultimately what did they say?
We totally condemn what Trump has done.
It's a terrible attack.
An hour later, after Iran had fought back, they said, Oh, we don't think Iran should actually be fighting back.
What does that suggest to us?
It shows that Venezuela is in the back pocket.
That's good news because the Strait of Hormuz takes 20% of the world's oil volume every day and ultimately bringing that Venezuela. and flow back online is why we have oil prices going up this morning but not skyrocketing through the roof.
We're not anywhere near $100 a barrel at the moment.
Why is that?
Because people understand the dynamic of Trump's planning was to make sure that Venezuela is able to step in as a swing state producer and even though OPEC are trying very hard to.
Throttle volume getting to market by using their HR hats and in fact their health and safety hats rather in order to manage to preclude there being much refining going on while they sort out what's going on in the Middle East over the course of the next few days.
The answer is this has been a moment of epic fury, and it's one that changes the world fundamentally once again.
Well, as you mentioned, geopolitics taking front and center stage this morning, we are seeing equity markets here in the US in negative territory, but as you mentioned, energy prices are higher.
So as we continue to monitor the dynamics in the Middle East, we also are paying.
Attention to what's coming out of the Pentagon as well as the White House.
So my next question to you is what does this conflict actually mean for countries that support Iran, including China and Russia, especially ahead of Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping later this month.
Hold on a second.
I think it's very important to bear in mind the fact that China, Iran, and Russia are three people who are allies but have absolutely nothing in common with each other.
Do you think that actually the behavior of the Russian Orthodox Church fundamentally pleases the Islamic regime in Iran?
Do you think that Got really anything in common with China?
No, this has always been a weak alliance of the people who are basically anti, or at least competing with America.
Where that's changing fundamentally in the world is, look, we can summarize it in one very simple way.
We've all been there in our student lives.
We've all been sitting around.
We couldn't afford our next drink and all our friends are incredibly sympathetic.
Does that buy us the next drink?
No, that's the state of play at the moment between China, Iran, and Russia.
And Patrick, finally, before I let you go, I do want to also mention that Pope Leo, he condemned the U.S.Israel operation but remained silent regarding Iran's tyranny.
But I do want to ask you about artificial intelligence since this has been something that has been.
Moving markets here in the US and and profits loud helped the US with its capture of Maduro.
Its military contract is over and the Pentagon is going with open AI.
So what do you make of all of this and how do you see all of this playing out?
It's very interesting, isn't it?
There's something that's grown up over recent years, which is this sort of legalistic belief that vendors can somehow or other influence the activity of their clients and ultimately Claude's going to hit a brick wall.
Donald Trump's been entirely resolute.
Yes, I can totally understand building something that ultimately ends with people being attacked and people being killed does not sit particularly.
Easily, but unfortunately that's rail politic and that's the realpolitik of business.
It's the same thing when we look at the satellite networks where the possibility has been that Musk has been actually smuggling satellites into Iran in order to manage to help the opposition.
This is a very, very giddy war, but behind the scenes for all the talk of Claude, actually the vast The majority of Silicon Valley businesses are funding and helping in some way, shape or form proliferate the dissent, the wars, the Ukrainian war, etc. and therefore actually Claude is an outlier holding onto a moral tissue that I think it's going to find difficult to support in the long term, whether they're morally right or not.
Patrick, we will have to leave it there for today.
I appreciate your time.
Thank you so much for sharing all of your insights and perspectives as we kick off the new trading week.
