Member Info for smiffyBlok85

My concern about the Iranian presidents statement and leak of details of internal communications is it is a ruse designed to keep America engaged. The longer this goes on, the more negotiating space Iran holds.

It’s stagnant as there is an unanswered question on where the motion lotion is coming from past April. The far east has more strategic reserve left. But not much.

Who knows? Only Trump I guess.

Issue we have is that even if the ME situation winds up, the supply is laggy. It’s not getting from Gulf to EU refineries overnight. I would say the relief rally when it comes will be pretty fast.

I’m still playing game theory in my mind with Trump: I don’t see the deployment of 40,000 US marines into Iran a credible outcome (of those 40,000 less than 1 in 3 will be frontline forces) . He has run out of time now with the direct impact of the operation being slammed for the global downturn. If this carries on for much longer, the USA is facing a very significant downturn. Pull back and re-group would be my guess. Negotiations with Iran will be less about a solid outcome and optics/loss of face management for both sides.

All imho

The Iranians know that though. And are pretty good at this. There will be face saving terms here for both, perhaps that will benefit whatever the future regime looks like in Iran. Part of the settlement may well be a change in philosophical approach, in return for being left alone. Who knows?

On the US side, the presidency, even with the orange fat man in charge, is greater than a single person. Suspect there will be sensible heads that will step in to protect the man child. Particularly legal counsel, who will advise him of the potential consequences.

You are right though. This is akin to informed high stakes poker.

The US cannot afford to mix it in a long term operation as the resource cost will leave them badly exposed in the event of the Chinese making a move on Taiwan. The current stocks of SM, Patriot and THAAD are going to be getting critically low.

In other news, Urakine seems to have taken a step forwards in starting a ceasefire with Russia. IF Iran and the Middle East issue is resolved, and Russian airspace is opened, it’s going to reduce a load of cost in the aviation industry. Fuel prices will recover with time. I see quite a rosy 2-3 year period for leisure and business flying, notwithstanding a global recession

Buy the dip. My targets at the mo are Airbus, Barclays, Easy, TUI (lower end of the investment scale though) Microsoft, Google... ive made a few bob trading Oil on Spread bets at £0.5 a point and won a little on an ETF.

Currently invested at 55% of pot and will be continuing to average down on losers. Just got to decide on "Balance" as im heavy into airlines at the moment.

i think that a little game theory may be at play here.

the consequences of a ground invasion or even a tier 1 spearhead attack on iranian soil would be very costly in terms of american lives (and israel have said they will not deploy conventional forces there). additionally, the impact on the international markets would be atrocious. every single time us bonds have approached or exceeded 4.5%, trump has chickened out. even at that rate, the usa is looking at $1.8 trillion in interest payments.

third point. electorally, the use of ground forces in iran would be unforgivable - trump and the maga campaign made very specific campaign promises that this would not happen.

fourth. a houthi led insurgency against red sea traffic is not tolerable and will cause a massive global recession if this were to last more than 4 weeks. the us dont have much in the way of capability spare at the moment to take on the houthis again.

finally, we are already 30 days in on the presidential imperative/right to conduct military operations without congressional approval. there is no way this extends past 60 days. there isnt much you can do with a ground force in 30 days.

this is nothing other than leverage; the iranians are not stupid and will push for a settlement that leaves them in a better position. america will look for concessions in the short term to save face.

in short, this is pre-ordained. the path from a to b is not a straight one; there will be further dips. there are a few scenarios that could play out here, not least a mass public uprising against the regime, the takeover of a more liberal and less angry regime, or the overthrow of the ****sexual ayatollah and instead reversion to a non-religious military leadership structure.

my contention is that things wont get horrendously worse as that doesnt benefit anyone.

Good lad Sundezena. Lets keep our toes crossed that it works out. I am mixing it a bit with Easy at the mo - think they will see a stronger recover earlier, particularly if the goat abusers in Yemen decide to start messing around. The only place they can get Oil from Saudi will be up the suez canal - plenty of motion lotion for the EU leisure market, not so much for far east and a lot of long haul destinations.

America will be playing this to the wire - 5th April deadline, which is gutting, as i have my savings ready to pop straight into the market across 2x adult isa and 2x child ISA.

I’ve made a fortune from it so far and will make significantly more with the buying of “bombed out” shares too. (Pun intended). In fact some are more bombed out than Gaza/Tehran and rat hole Hamas tunnels. Hard to believe that Microsoft is playing at well below average PE currently.

You do realise you are on a share trading forum don’t you? There are a few socialist green haired and unemployed themed Jeremy Corbyn forums you could join instead? Are you not a little lost on here?

Think it will get worse initially before it gets better. I am doing a scan of all main destinations used across the EU to see if any NOTAM are published declaring fuel shortages. The other clue will be a pause on the Refuel EU mandate until we get through this.

I cant find any published data for strategic reserve stocks but you only have to see the impact on Diesel price to see how this will be affecting Aviation Fuel supply (similar hydrocarbon fraction).

The devil in the room isnt the Iranians, its actually the Houthis. The Strategic reserve release of circa 200 million barrels globally was forecast to last 60-70 days at spring consumption rates. If the Houthis close the Red Sea entrance, not only does it take 7 million barrels a day out of the system, it limits tanker traffic globally.

Ironically, this could benefit the EU as the only entry and exit to the red sea will be through the Suez canal; this means that the EU could benefit from supply, but this means the Far East will go short. Net result imo will be Shorthaul benefits, with Longhaul, especially to the far east, further hamstrung.

Just buy the dip. Only just getting in here.

They werent "Drones". They were ICBM/IRBM. The spin on it has been strong - Iran dont have anything with that range. I think they were chancing it and the media has decided to overplay it to get Europe all hot under the collar.

Just to be clear on Kargh island.

It’s not a wellhead. It’s an outlet into the gulf. The wells are inland, meaning if USA capture Kargh, all they are doing is shutting off the income stream. They don’t actually have access to to the supply as the Iranians will turn this off. There would be a few days worth of supply in the tanks.

I honestly don’t think Kargh is on tbe cards. It’s either a diversion to something else or a crap negotiating hand designed to put pressure on the regime. I think the latter is where the IRGC’s mental model is, hence why they have repeatedly stated “bring it on”.

The USA aren’t being very clever here. The UAE has now blocked IRGC access to cash and gold deposits held in their banks. The move to the ren is more to do with ensuring any extra cash isn’t now seized as it can be stored in Chinese banks. But…

The IRGC isn’t getting paid and inflation is correspondingly through the roof. They can try and activate conscription, but with no pay, I’m keen to see where the motivation will be to fight. The IRGC I suspect will also be nervous in a mass call out in case arming the peasants results in an uprising amongst those units; 90% of the Iranian population despise the regime.

Whilst ME airlines can pump unlimited free oil, they can’t do this at the far end on their longhaul routes, so it’s as problematic for them as it is for western airlines

6000 troops btw is around 5% of what they will need to achieve a meaningful victory.

In Iraq, we were harassed and bothered by the insurgency. We took very serious losses As a Coalition when we faced Quds and other Iranian professional combatants in the field.

The Americans know they aren’t fighting a rag tag army here. The Iranian IRGC are battle hardened and sneaky.

If you sell your shares, be warned, I’ll be buying them off you and holding for 3 years to fund my early retirement.

Trump has 60 days. Once his time is up, if this hasn’t been concluded, he is getting impeached. Iran would need to attack mainland USA for the view to shift on this. Approvals ratings mean that the Republican Party have less than 1 month to get the momentum building for the mid-terms and high prices of fuel and inflation need to be on the way down before then. Otherwise nothing will get passed through the house and the republicans will have lost the next electoral run in.

What is right - the freedom of Persians in Iran - will not come ahead of that.

Vance is positioning right now to take over.

Trump isn’t going to get his ground invasion.

My take is congress are about to call time on this, and potentially Trump as well.

I think the last bounce in 2023 was off the back of rumours of a takeover. One of the companies named is IAG. Apparently there is/was a cruise company also sniffing.

Easy looks very undervalued at the moment. They own over 40% of their metal, have a decent slot portfolio, net cash is around 600 million, op margin of over 17% and a growing holidays business.

And trading at a P/E of 5.5. I’m wondering whether this will pop again once the gulf is sorted out?

Seen the Easy share price recently? Current Market Cap of 2.74 billion (market peak was >15.6B in may 2021. They are approaching lows past the worst of Covid 2022.

Also note IAG have pulled out from the recent talks on part privatisation of TAP Portugal; what are the odds that IAG make a move on EasyJet whilst the price is at a record low?

Considering Easy’s Net cash holdings are over 600M and they have a decent order book and a massive European slot portfolio, I’m starting to wonder if this could be on the cards?

Prospectively filled me boots over there too

Reading tonights RNS correctly, is the IAG share buyback complete?! Half a billion done already? IAG must be predicting a rapid recover if so?

LGW forecast to have the busiest year since post-Covid this year in terms of moves. Jet2 all pitching up en masse too.