“When you call my name, it's like a little prayer I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there In the midnight hour, I can feel your power Just like a prayer, you know I'll take you there”
Update 1
Intelligence and Psyops
Trading is rather similar to running an intelligence operation. You have finite resources to allocate in search of an edge—usually through transactions—and some people will always give away too much or unnecessary information at the wrong price.
And then you have your usual psyop games: perception shaping/shifting, projection, and, of course, paranoia. Basically, attributes innate to most humans—some more than others.
Of course, it's really just about doing your own homework and having confidence in yourself and the team.
Besides, most of the fun and games are banned now. How’s someone supposed to make money in the market these days? Scalping new issues? Or actually taking risk?
Will Iran Attack U.S. Assets in the Region?
Gleaning through the comments and messages, everyone wants to know about the Strait of Hormuz and what Iran’s next move might be—will they attack the U.S. bases in the region? On the first point, we’ll write more later. As for the latter, we can only draw reference to historical precedents where Iran and its networks have moved slowly and kept the intensity at a lower threshold—the octopus, as the Israelis describe them. Or, as some Iranian commentators say, boiling the Israeli frog. They secretly love each other.
In the end, it may come as a surprise, but the Iranian regime doesn’t measure success or failure by the number of deaths or bang-for-buck gratification.
Therefore, one must also consider the possibility that:
i) Iran won’t take direct action against U.S. interests in the region, but its axes will—making it harder for the U.S. to escalate.
ii) If the objective was to get rid of the U.S. footprint in the Middle East… well, Trump and whoever’s in charge of the IRGC these days might potentially have a deal which satisfies both parties—as US personnel have already left.
I mean, let's put things into context… they blew the top of a mountain off rather than let the reckless Israeli have a crack at it. And gave the Iranians a legitimate reason to make the nuclear program clandestine.
Is it day 10 or 11 since Israel started on Iran? I’ve lost count—and so might have Bibi, along with how many missiles Iran has left… and how many interceptors he’s got left. We went from an initial intelligence estimate of 2,000–3,000 intermediate-range missiles in Iran’s stockpile at the start of the campaign—to Bibi’s sudden proclamation that they’ve got 28,000.
He really is a “24-carat bullshitter,” as a British diplomat said years ago.
Personally, I lost interest the second Sir Keir Starmer came out with his NATO “declaration of war” comment. They used to give knighthoods to serious people—high achievers.
It’s been one long string of disappointments if your first UK prime minister as a child was the Iron Lady.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out our new crypto venture: iranium.io
Talibangs.com For Sale
Separately, I’m looking to sell talibangs.com, which I’ve owned since August 2021—the day Kabul airport fell back under Taliban control. I remember that day vividly—PTSD galore, with people (like Gen. Hayden) bombing each other on social media.
It seemed like a fun idea worth exploring at the time, but there’s no money in dating apps these days. And the folks at the NSA aren’t interested in local profiles anymore. They must’ve come to some sort of agreement with “Abdul Bomb Bomb,” as Trump likes to call him.
For full disclosure, we’re looking to do a domain pair switch into the one below, which is currently available—and for which we might have a potential buyer lined up…
Yallah, we have to pay the bills somehow.
Update 2
Right, let’s get the first bit of last week’s BS checked off the list…
The Pentagon has published the flight path of the B-2 bombers that struck the Fordow nuclear facility over the weekend:
Just as we suspected all along—access to Iranian airspace is still highly restricted.
What happened to “we took out all their air defenses”?
“Real men go to Tehran,” as the Bush-era neocons used to say. Well, they didn’t this time either—even if, in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s surprise attack on Iran, they were fantasizing about pushing through Jordan and Iraq to conquer from the west, à la Alex III of Macedon… for all of 2 years—at the cost of ruining his own empire.
The Zagros mountain range is a bit of an obstacle—especially for an amateur army still struggling to hold a neighborhood in Gaza for more than five minutes.
As we’ve said before, the Russians, Iranians, and Chinese don’t waste time countering Western media narratives. They just let them collapse under their own contradictions with the next round of nonsense.
Still—a great shot from that far out for such a heavy munition.
Pity your Commander-in-Chief has completely undermined your mission with his shenanigans. We're impressed.
And to be clear: this was unlikely to have been a “surprise attack.”
B-2 bombers are under constant surveillance by Russian and Chinese satellites—even if they're not obliged to report in real-time to their counterparts.
The Yanks have armies of geeks doing the same—we know a few of them. (They’re still upset about the Tomahawks.)
Also, remember the other week we mentioned our drone engineer friend in Sweden, who managed to remote-control a drone using a SIM card back in 2019 during his spare time? That same method—used by the Ukrainians to strike the Russian bomber fleet—has now been detected by the Iranians. Turns out the quadcopters being launched from inside Iran were using the same trick. So, under attack from Israeli drones or munitions fired over Iraq, the Iranians simply switched off the internet.
[These internet blackouts are really screwing up my mate’s Zillow-like real estate business in Iran—he’s based in London himself and stepped down to purse a new venture. No web traffic, and people not buying new homes is a bad combo. They were about to close a funding round on a wave of economic optimism of a nuclear deal… right before this nonsense kicked off. There's always a bit of dark humor.]
It certainly didn’t help when the Israelis felt compelled to go public, bragging (like they usually do) that they had trained the Ukrainians—saying, “They [the Iranians] still don’t know us.”
Possibly. But you still don’t know yourselves either. Or, maybe they know you too well.
Either way, the Russians aren’t happy with the Israelis. Nor are they impressed.
Israel will be fine—not everyone defines military success by mass casualties.
Just several days of psychological torture ahead.
It’s punishment enough that once the war ends, Israelis will have to reckon with their demons for the horrors they’ve caused in Gaza. And no, it's predominantly a civilian army. Nobody will buy that excuse.
As a rule of thumb, it’s a bad omen when the Germans are supporting your military campaign. They should stick to deciding which side to place a penalty kick on—not which side of history to stand on.
Narratives don't win wars, they just a temporary, false boost to public moral. Who knows—maybe the people all around will finally get their countries back from the status quo regimes.
Just like a prayer—if you believe in that stuff.
Update 3
It looks like Iran is using its short-range missile arsenal to strike U.S. bases across the Middle East—of which they have tens of thousands. So, they’re unlikely to stop until they accomplish their mission. Fortunately, these missiles have more accurate targeting, and the U.S. military bases have been emptied.
Iran also has a family of short-range ballistic missiles named the “Hormuz Strait.”
We suspect the Saudis have been given a choice: close their airspace for assistances—or get hit.
We think this is totally unnecessary… but that muppet in the White House keeps taunting Tehran about regime change.
Remember, Putin despises traitors.
Update 4
It’s hard to say whether the strikes on Qatar are purely performative or the start of a wider campaign. We know that:
— Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi was in Moscow today, meeting with President Putin.
— Russian Prime Minister Mishustin was in Tehran the day before Operation True Promise 2 was launched in October of last year. Upon his immediate return to Moscow, Putin’s convoy was spotted just before midnight racing toward the Kremlin to convene an emergency national security meeting. He always closes off the streets to move at breakneck speeds.
— Most people are now aware of the security cooperation pact—initially delayed—signed between Moscow and Tehran in early January. Reportedly, it’s not structured like a NATO Article 5 agreement, but there have been unsubstantiated rumors of subsequent ratifications from Russian sources. Take it with a fistful of salt.
— Yet, the mainstream narrative—at least in Western media and among “analysts”—is that Iran is isolated and acting alone. That is, they’re still relying on 2015 facts and flimsy assumptions in their analysis. They don’t even bother checking the travel itineraries of foreign officials. Instead, preferring to live in their own narratives and talking points.
— U.S. bases in Iraq have also been listed in the target bank, according to open sources.
— Israeli security officials are reportedly considering a U.S.-declared unilateral ceasefire in Iran—see here. Basically, they’ve run out of air defense interceptors—and probably targets—having originally planned for a war lasting less than 14 days.
This is akin to the 2021 Israel-Hamas war, when Israel called for a ceasefire because Mohammed Deif kept launching stove pipe–grade rockets for ten straight days, eventually depleting the Iron Dome.
— There are (unconfirmed) reports of two Chinese intelligence ships stationed in the Persian Gulf offering assistance to Iran.
— Below are China’s reported oil inventories, according to Morgan Stanley. The stockpiling could also be driven by other factors—such as lower prices or signs of an economic slowdown.
It feels like we're close to crunch time—either way. And the new “axis of evil” might sense an opportunity here, given the sheer lack of strategic foresight or planning demonstrated so far by the Trump administration.
Update 5
Hey, we're just reflecting what we deem to be the most relevant information at hand from open sources and—where possible—drawing logical conclusions. In fluid situations like this, we have neither the time nor the bandwidth to engage in personal trading or follow mainstream media reporting. That ship sailed long ago—and I can think of nothing more mind-numbing than sitting in front of screens, trading off news headlines.
Nor are we able—or willing—to verify or appraise what JPMorgan or some bucket-shop broker is saying on the fly. Even with the most advanced tools and technology, it still takes years to build and foster the personal relationships necessary to know who to turn to for reliable information.
We leave it to readers to make their own decisions as they see fit. Certainly, a sharp market rally on a binary-type situation seems strange to us. But we’re also working off different information and have zero sense for market technicals or positioning.
And frankly, at the risk of sounding “woke,” I find it a bit crass or childish to be talking markets right now. The humor is just to mask the stress.
Look who just popped up… How did we go from Margaret Thatcher to this buffoon in my lifetime?
Other countries also have non-political prisoners as well. Of course, Boris Johnson’s loose lips while serving as UK Foreign Secretary made Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s situation far worse than it needed to be.
Jeff's analysis posted earlier today is well worth a read—he's also shared it online. Here's the unrolled version.
A pointless mission, perhaps—but setting aside the ethical aspects, building munitions that weigh 16–30 tonnes and can travel tens of miles with precision targeting is a remarkable engineering feat.
Anyway, I’m taking a break for a few hours—having dinner with my old man, who's in town today. He left my mother in Dubai, which, as it turns out, isn’t much to her taste. Even less so when there are Iranian ballistic missiles flying next door—and my assurances that short-range missiles have more accurate targeting aren't helping either.
And, a live-streamed Roman–Persian war has just broken out in the family group chat. Say a prayer for him.
