US President Donald Trump told Fox News on Sunday that a war with Iran would end soon and that the US would win. The report said his comments came after he cancelled a delegation to Pakistan that could have discussed matters directly with Iran.<\/p>\n
Trump said an incident would not stop him from pursuing victory and said Iran could contact the US to talk. He said any talks could be done by phone.<\/p>\n
He said some Iranian contacts were reasonable and others were not, and said he hoped Iran would act wisely. He also said NATO did not support the US on Iran and that the US would seize Iran\u2019s nuclear material as part of talks.<\/p>\n
Trump said China \u201ccould do more\u201d and \u201ccould have been far worse\u201d. He also said he would hold talks with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy about Ukraine.<\/p>\n
At the time of writing, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil was up 1.25% on the day at $94.30. WTI is a US-sourced crude benchmark traded via the Cushing hub and is often described as light and sweet due to lower gravity and sulphur.<\/p>\n
WTI prices are driven mainly by supply and demand, along with geopolitics, sanctions, OPEC decisions, and the US dollar. Weekly inventory reports from API and EIA can move prices, and their results are within 1% of each other 75% of the time.<\/p>\n
The President’s comments about an imminent and victorious conflict with Iran are a major signal for increased geopolitical risk. This directly threatens crude oil supply flowing through the Middle East, a fear now reflected in the market. We are seeing WTI crude oil prices already climb towards $95 a barrel as traders price in this new uncertainty.<\/p>\n
This situation dramatically increases the likelihood of sharp price swings in the energy market. We should anticipate a significant rise in implied volatility for oil options over the next few weeks. This makes long volatility strategies, such as buying calls on WTI futures or using option straddles, a logical approach to capitalize on potential price spikes.<\/p>\n
We should remember the market reaction following the start of the conflict in Ukraine back in 2022. That geopolitical event caused Brent crude to soar above $130 a barrel in weeks, showing how sensitive energy prices are to military action involving a major producer. The current rhetoric suggests a similar, if not faster, price escalation could occur if diplomatic channels fail.<\/p>\n
The fundamentals of the oil market are already tight, which will amplify any supply shock. Any conflict could threaten passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which is still the transit point for nearly a fifth of the world\u2019s daily oil supply. With the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) report showing that U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly fell by 2.5 million barrels last week, there is little buffer to absorb a disruption.<\/p>\n
Keep a close watch on the reaction from OPEC+ members, as they hold the world’s only significant spare production capacity. Their decision-making in the coming days will be critical in signaling whether they can or will step in to calm markets. If they signal an inability to quickly ramp up production, it will add more fuel to this bullish trend.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trump predicts swift US victory over Iran, invites talks, cites NATO reluctance; WTI crude rises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"josephine","author_link":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/author\/josephine\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}