The Iran War Trade: My playbook.

Introduction and The Geopolitical Thesis

This is exactly what I did. I felt like the market initially thought the war would end quickly, but I did not believe that. I positioned my portfolio for a long, grinding conflict, and I was right.

Now, I am not going to sit here and pretend I possess a crystal ball. I do not know exactly what will happen next. The war could end soon, even if I strongly doubt it will. Geopolitics is incredibly hard to predict, and the situation on the ground changes daily. But as investors, we have to trade the material reality in front of us, not the wishful thinking of politicians.

The consensus trap on Wall Street remains very real. The prevailing assumption among analysts is still that this is a localized disruption that will be resolved the moment a few diplomats shake hands in Geneva. When you look at the physical destruction of critical infrastructure and the sheer scale of the regional escalation, you realize this is not a temporary supply chain glitch. This is a fundamental rewiring of global energy flows.

If you are trading this as a quick event, you are going to get chopped to pieces by the volatility. We are playing the long game. Here is exactly what I bought, what I sold, and the trades I decided to pass on.

Chapter 1: What I Bought, The War Portfolio

When the Gulf burns, you do not buy the companies caught in the fire. You buy the companies holding the fire extinguishers.

I started with the oil torque. I bought Valeura Energy because they are sitting on an absolute goldmine of an arbitrage. The CEO himself actually confirmed this exact dynamic in their Q and A session during their earnings report a couple of days ago. He noted that they are a cheap producer selling their Thai oil not for the standard Brent price, but for the Dubai premium. Because Asian buyers are in a state of total panic over supply security, that Dubai benchmark has been trading at an absurd 150 to 160 dollars a barrel. Valeura is printing cash at a historic rate.

I paired this with PetroTal. They are a high cost producer operating out of Peru, which means they offer maximum torque to the upside. When global oil prices go parabolic, high cost producers see their profit margins multiply exponentially faster than low cost producers. PetroTal is entirely disconnected from Middle Eastern logistics and shipping hazards, yet they reap all the pricing rewards of a starved global market. Furthermore, they may start receiving a massive safety and assurance premium. Customers are desperate to secure oil from safe jurisdictions, and this premium could easily persist long after the war ends because the illusion of Middle Eastern stability is permanently shattered.

Then I moved to the Fortress America trade. I aggressively bought CF Industries for fertilizer exposure, alongside LyondellBasell and Celanese for petrochemicals. The logic here is structural. It is incredibly hard for the United States to export its natural gas because there simply is not enough LNG infrastructure built to handle the volume. This massive bottleneck traps the gas domestically, leading to these North American companies having access to really cheap gas. It gives them an insurmountable feedstock advantage over the rest of the world.

While European and Asian competitors face bankruptcy trying to secure astronomically expensive energy, these US giants are running their plants on pennies. Furthermore, we have to consider the political climate. Trump may very well impose populistic export bans on energy to protect American consumers. If that happens, even more gas gets trapped inside the US borders, which would lower the domestic price even more for these industrial players.

Add to this the fact that China has already started restricting the export of petroleum related downstream products to protect its own economy. This creates a massive supply void globally. CF Industries, LyondellBasell, and Celanese are perfectly insulated from the chaos and perfectly positioned to fill that void at absolute premium prices.

Chapter 2: What I Sold, Risk Off Exits and Liquidity Preservation

Let us talk about the elephants in the room. Gold and Silver. Silver is down heavily this month. Gold is bleeding. The world largest gas field just got bombed, central banks have been hoarding gold, and the textbook says you should buy precious metals. So naturally, I sold.

Why? Because when a war destroys your primary income stream, you have to sell your nest egg to survive. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE accumulated massive amounts of gold and silver during the good times. Now, with major facilities bombed and their revenues evaporating, those sovereign wealth funds need US dollars to keep their economies afloat and their populace from revolting. They are liquidating the most liquid assets they have. Add in a hawkish Federal Reserve, a surging dollar, and massive margin calls across the broader market, and you get forced selling that ignores all traditional fundamentals.

Furthermore, silver carries a double exposure. It is both a monetary metal and an industrial one. Investment demand is cratering on interest rate fears, and the industrial demand outlook is darkening on recession fears. But here is the critical pivot. Even if the war is terrible for silver right now, it will have a phenomenal effect after the war ends. When the dust settles, nations and ordinary people are going to want to become radically more energy independent by buying millions of solar panels and electric vehicles. You cannot build a green, decentralized grid without massive amounts of silver. This war absolutely turbocharges the long term case.

I did not sell everything. I just sold a part of my position that I am looking to add back when I see the war slowing down or ending. I did the exact same thing for my broader miners and silver producers. I also reluctantly sold a portion of my Orvana Minerals position because their copper extraction requires sulfur, and sulfur is currently facing massive supply chain disruptions globally. I am simply preserving capital right now to deploy when the time is right.

Chapter 3: The Trades I Passed On

I actively chose not to take several popular trades. I skipped the obvious plays like Wheat, Sugar, and Oil Tankers like Okeanis Eco Tankers or Frontline.

Why did I skip them? Because those are trades built for a short term panic. If you believe the kinetic phase of this war is going to end in a couple of months, you would buy unhedged US shale drillers sitting on drilled but uncompleted wells who can turn the spigots on for a quick price spike. You would buy cargo airlines exploiting the air freight panic surge while the oceans are temporarily blocked. You might also look at US mini mill steel producers running on cheap domestic scrap, or North American farmland to replace starved South American crop yields.

Here is the rewritten paragraph based exactly on your new logic, keeping the punchy tone and strictly avoiding any hyphen signs:

But let us dig into exactly why I avoided those specific sectors during this war. Take the oil tankers like Okeanis and Frontline. I saw the data showing that roughly 8 percent of the global VLCC fleet was stuck in the Gulf. That sounds like a massive catalyst for higher shipping rates. However, an even bigger percentage of global oil production was going offline simultaneously because of the infrastructure strikes. This fundamental imbalance made me dislike the trade entirely. Yes, the active ships are currently forced to travel much further distances to source alternative oil, which drastically increases ton miles and means they are earning an absolute fortune right now. But when you have more cargo disappearing from the market than the ships available to carry it, the underlying math simply does not work for a long term hold.

I also passed on the thermal coal producers. Companies like Thungela Resources and Whitehaven Coal are seeing a massive resurgence because Asian countries are turning back to coal as natural gas becomes too expensive. Thungela is trading at an absurdly low valuation, practically under two times its forward cash flow, and yielding a massive dividend. However, I stayed away because Thungela relies heavily on South African railway infrastructure managed by Transnet, which is notoriously unreliable. One derailed train or stolen copper cable, and their entire export capacity is paralyzed. The risk reward was simply not clean enough for my core portfolio.

What is Behind the Paywall Today?

If you want to survive the next decade of geopolitics, you need to understand the critical supply chains that cannot be easily replaced. Below the paywall, I am breaking down two vital pieces of research that the broader market is entirely missing. This is the exact intelligence you need to front run the institutional money.

First, I am revealing the irreplaceable defense metal. I have been quietly building a position in the premier Western producer of a critical resource that China currently dominates. The Western defense industrial base is utterly broken, and European militaries must hoard this specific metal to rebuild their depleted arsenals. The buyers literally do not care about the price. I will show you exactly how Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin are inadvertently driving this massive supercycle.

Second, I am releasing my De Americanization Reconstruction Watchlist. If American contractors are kicked out of the Gulf post war, who rebuilds the Middle East? I have analyzed and ranked the top non US companies that are quietly positioning to absorb billions in emergency restart and pipeline contracts. This list alone provides a multi year roadmap for the greatest infrastructure transfer of our generation.

Subscribe below to unlock this exclusive research and read the rest of the dispatch.