Thoughts on the conflict in Israel and Gaza

I had an interesting exchange with a subscriber the other day. He paid for a subscription and asked to be added to the Telegram channel. I noticed he had a very anti-Semitic username, so I declined his request and immediately removed him from my subscriber list. This encounter was unsettling in light of what’s happening with Israel and Palestine right now.

There is simply no room for bigotry and racism in the world of investing and trading (or anywhere, for that matter). To survive as market participants, we strive to seek facts and the truth, and predict how market participants will react to them. When you experience the world through this lens, you learn that the beliefs and prejudices underlying racism and bigotry have little basis in reality. It’s shocking to see supposedly intelligent people around the world, even from America’s elite universities, defend the war crimes and atrocities that Hamas committed in Israel as “justified” or something to celebrate. You know the country is going down a dark and polarized path when the defense of murderers who massacre and kidnap innocent people becomes a badge of pride for the far left. Either people no longer know how to seek the unbiased truth in the world, or the polarized and algorithm-fuel media no longer gives them the means to.

The reality is that there is nothing to celebrate about war - not the massacres that Hamas carried or, and not the widespread bombings on civilians in Gaza carried out by the Israelis in response. War brings out the worst in humanity and makes people do barbaric things. Instead of picking sides, I’d rather pick peace. Instead of protesters carrying Palestinian and Israeli flags yelling at each other, I’d rather see them united and protesting against violence.

War hedges are going nuts today. Gold is up $55 and 3%, while oil is up $3.6 and 4.5%. Eur/chf is down 1%, the biggest one day move in a long time. Israel is expected to invade Gaza in the next few days, but that has been expected all week, so I’m not sure what new news the market is trading on. Nothing has really changed with expected outcomes in Israel vs Gaza, but I guess today the market just decided to pile into war trades as we enter the weekend. While I’m glad I’m long oil, I’m bummed I cut my gold position. If on Monday nothing worse than expected happens, these trades should reverse a fair bit.