Nvidia, Euro and the British pound were all money gusher trade ideas in 2025!
Matein Khalid
It is ironic that Brent crude collapsed from its $78 high on the New York Merc to as low as 66.80 in early Singapore trading even though Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched a missile strike on America's largest military base in the Gulf in Qatar. This retaliatory strike was polite, measured and apologetic with advance notice given to Centcom to avoid any US military casualties. Trump literally thanked Iran for the great degree of consideration shown for the sanctity of human life at Udeid Air Force base. The missile launch was symbolic and not retaliatory, the prelude to potential peace talks between Iran and the US on Trump's preannounced terms.
The oil market finally agreed with my view that there was no real risk of mining, let alone closure of the world's most critical energy chokepoint – the Straits of Hormuz. Yet the scale of long liquidation in the oil futures/swaps and wet barrel market stunned me as it presages a potential collapse of oil prices under the weight of a supply glut and falling demand. Who would have believed that energy would be the worst performing sector on the first trading day after the US bombed Iran's three most important nuclear hubs at Fordo, Natanz and Ispahan. Welcome to the surreal Alice In Wonderland milieu of the global financial markets.
The macro heartbeats of finance now suggest that the optimum trade is to short gold for a $3200 target. Go long the AI colossus Nvidia as the risk fairies once again return to the money making Xanadu gifted to the cognoscenti by Jensen Huang. AI is the most revolutionary technology in human history because it improves as it is implemented across the digital ecosystem and is a productivity game changer that can mint fortunes for investors who grasp its cosmic potential. I have written at least a dozen posts on Nvidia since its May 2023 earnings triggered the latest parabolic rise in its revenues, earnings and share price. A 10X return on a free post is my idea of an intellectual black swan even though no one else has generated an idea as remotely profitable for me as I have done numerous times for both my close friends and followers.
Note that my conviction that 2025 would be the year to short the US dollar against the Euro, British pound and gold has proved consistently profitable. I have articulated the macro logic of the long Euro, sterling and gold trade ad infinitum since late 2024 in this post and in my media columns in the GCC and London. The Euro was at 1.0258 just after New Year Day 2025 and is now just above 1.16. Sterling/cable was at 1.2520 on New Year and is now 1.3615 as I write. Gold was at 2650 in early Jan 2025 and is now at 3325. I am temporarily out of love with Dr Auri and my cronies may express their thanks for this money making fiesta via liquid gifts next time we meet for dinner LOL!
Also published on Medium.
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Weathering the storm If Coventry is anything to go by, uranium enrichment and missile-launcher production will be up and running within months, not years, as the Americans claim. The technology, the know-how, and above all the Iranian national will to restore and rebuild key national assets have all weathered the storm. Evidently, from the damage Iranian missiles inflicted within hours of Trump's announcement of a ceasefire, its ballistic missile force, the second Israeli war aim, remains a palpable and continuing threat to Israel. Israel sustained more damage from Iran's missiles in 12 days than it did from two years of Hamas's homegrown rockets, or indeed from months of war with Hezbollah. In 12 days, Israeli crews have come to grips with the sort of damage to apartment blocks that before only Israeli planes had inflicted on Gaza and Lebanon - and it's been something of a shock. Strategic targets have been hit, including an oil refinery and a power station. 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War of narratives For in the end, this conflict was never about ending a nuclear-bomb programme that never existed (if it had, Iran would have long ago been able to build a bomb). This conflict was essentially a war between two narratives. The first is well known. It goes like this. The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 was a strategic mistake. No force that Arabs or Iranians can muster can ever match the power of Israel and the US combined, or even Israel armed with the latest generation of weapons. Israel will always defeat its enemies on the battlefield, as it did in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1978 and 1982. The only option for Arabs is to recognise Israel on its terms, which means to trade with it, and leave Palestinian statehood for another day. This view is held with variations, and unofficially, by all Arab leaders and their military and security chiefs. The alternative narrative is that while the state of Israel exists in its current form, there can be no peace. This is the source of the conflict, as opposed to the presence of Jews in Palestine. Resistance to occupation will always exist, no matter who takes up or puts down the cudgel, as long as that occupation continues. Iran's existence as a regime that defies the Israeli will to dominate and conquer is more important than its strategic rocket force. Its ability to stand up to Israel and the US, and to keep fighting, shows the same spirit that Palestinians in Gaza have shown in refusing to be starved into surrender. If the ceasefire holds, Iran has a number of options. It should be in no rush to return to a negotiating table abandoned twice by Trump himself - once when he withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, and again this month, when his envoy Steve Witkoff was engaged in direct talks. Trump boasted that he had deceived the Iranians by engaging them in talks and allowing Israel to prepare its strikes at the same time. Well, he won't be able to pull that trick again. Tehran's options To return to talks, Iran would need guarantees that Israel will not attack again - guarantees that Israel itself will never give. As I and others have argued, being part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty has served Iran's interests poorly. It could walk away from the treaty, having every incentive now to develop a nuclear bomb to stop Israel from ever doing this again. In reality, Iran does not have to do anything. It has weathered maximum-pressure sanctions and a 12-day armageddon with the latest American weaponry in use. It does not need an agreement. It can rebuild and repair the damage it has sustained in these attacks, and if past experience is anything to go by, it will emerge stronger than before. The Iranian people will never forgive or forget US-Israeli attacks Read More » Netanyahu and Trump have some accounting to do to an increasingly hostile and sceptical domestic audience. Israel's former defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is worth quoting in this regard. He noted after the ceasefire announcement: 'Despite Israel's military and intelligence successes, the ending is bitter. Instead of unconditional surrender, we're entering tough talks with a regime that won't stop enriching uranium, building missiles, or funding terror. 'From the start, I warned: there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded lion. A ceasefire without a clear deal will only bring another war in 2-3 years - under worse conditions.' Israel has swapped Gaza's homemade rockets for Iran's ballistic missiles. It has swapped an indirect enemy and sponsor of proxy militias, for a direct enemy - one that has no hesitation in sending the entire population of Israel into bunkers. That is some achievement, but not the one Netanyahu was thinking 12 days ago. The major European states - all signatories to the Iran nuclear deal - have absolutely nothing to say to Iran. They have abdicated all ability to mediate in their spinelessness and acquiescence to an attack on Iran that had absolutely no legality in international law. Once again, they have undermined the international order they claim to be upholding. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
