Folks emergency message: You're not going to want to miss this one. We've got a new crisis blowing up right here in the Red Sea the area between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula Yes, the same area that leads to the Sez Canal which is one of the most important canals in the world. Iran-backed Hothy militants have been attacking commercial ships in the area. The US destroyed three of their boats via helicopter and now Iran is moving a major warship to the area in retaliation.

This is the latest escalation of the West versus East battle that has been escalating since October 7 The October 7th attacks on Israel and it's already having a huge impact on oil prices, on shipping costs, on the ability to ship. It caused the stock market to enter its first day of the year in a funk and overall uncertainty is on an uptrend again. In today's video, we are going to cover everything that you need to know how to prepare and how to hopefully make money off current geopolitical trends as well as protect money that you already have in markets. We're also going to be giv updates on play ideas as well as some new ones.

Let's get right into it and if you appreciate all of the work that goes into making a video like this, the only thing that I ask in return is that you hit that ravishing like button and also don't forget to subscribe. Okay folks, so today we need to start by explaining why the Red Sea is so crucial for global trade and why this West versus East war in the region is such a big threat. You see folks, the Red Sea is a key waterway in one of the world's most densely packed shipping channels. It connects Asia and Europe and serves as a major artery for the movement of goods between the two continents.

Its strategic location and unique characteristics make it an essential route for maritime trade. Now, of course, the the key factor that makes the Red Sea such a crucial trading route is its proximity to Asia and Europe and its ability to connect the two. Ships Traveling through the Red Sea can easily access port cities such as Jeda in Saudi Arabia and Port SED in Egypt which are very, very important hubs for trade. Most importantly, it leads to the Sez Canal which is the second most important Canal by volume of goods.

Without the Red Sea, the Sez Canal would not exist in global trade would be profoundly impacted. The Red Sea also offers a lot more in terms of cost efficiency versus other routes. It's much more time efficient, and cost effective. For example, the route through the Red Sea is shorter than the traditional route around the Cape of Good Hope, which reduces the journey time and fuel consumption for ships by quite a lot.

This not only saves money for shipping companies, but also allows for faster delivery of goods benefiting both producers and consumers. When you don't get those savings, who pays the shipping cost? Well, of course, the everyday consumer. Furthermore, you got to know that the Red Sea is also home to strategic military ports and other strategic ports which serve as key trans shipment points for goods moving between different regions. These ports offer facilities for storage, handling, and transloading of cargo, allowing for a smooth flow of goods between multiple modes of transportation.

For example, ships arriving in the Red Sea can transfer their cargo to smaller vessels or barges for onward transportations to Inland destinations. And of course, while there's a lot of economic activity that happens in that overall area, well, there's a lot more that happens in Europe and broader Asia that just cannot connect. If you don't have that region, you don't have that canal and you don't have that Red Sea and that is all under threat right now. the Red Sea is effectively being blocked.

So what exactly is going on and why the escalation? Well Iran backed Houy Rebels attacked a shipping vessel owned by MEK in that region and then in response on December 31st US Navy helicopters in the Red Sea sank three Houy Rebel boats which killed all of their crew members according to reports Now Iran saw that and they decided, you know what? We're going to go ahead and move our warship to the area. Why would Iran do this? Why I Thought that Houie Rebels were their own group. Well, of course that's not the case. Houie Rebels are largely just an proxy.

They're like 100% funded by Iran Iran has been fighting a proxy war via Houie Rebels there. But now that these Rebels are getting gunned down by the West while Iran is sending its ship for reinforcements, if the US wants to Gun Down Iran ship, it's going to be a much bigger problem because then you're in direct conflict. If the US guns down Houthi Rebels, Nobody seems to care, but all of a sudden, once Iran's there, it's a much, much bigger deal. By deploying warships in the Red, Sea Iran is enhancing its military presence with the goal of deterring more potential threats from its adversaries in the west.

Of course, Iran doesn't like the US and Western influences. Being in the Middle East Iran wants to be the top dog of that whole region. so this strategic move allows Iran to project power and influence in the region. And if the West tries to counter that, well, all of a sudden, you're in direct conflict, which of course the West does not want for many reasons, but largely because all of a sudden, you're going to have a larger West versus East War where you're going to start getting Russia involved, China involved, so on, and so forth.

So Iran sees this as a very, very necessary an important step to assort its Regional power now, of course. As you might have guessed, as a result of this situation, more and more companies are halting shipping Maris which is one of the ships that the Houthis attacked and one of the biggest shipping companies in the world just stopped shipping until further notice and other companies are now having to pay their Cruise double to work through the super dangerous Red Sea I Don't care what you're paying me I ain't working in that Red sea. You could pay me Triple for tripple I ain't working in that sea. They call it a Red Sea for a reason and some 350 container ships plus all manner of tankers, bulk carriers, car carriers, and other Merchant vessels have diverted to different routes.

And while this has just really been starting the last couple of months, Well, if you start having a complete shutdown and you start having this stretch out 6 months a year, two years, all of a sudden, you're going to see a massive, massive problem in terms of global trade. Remember what the S Canal blockage did when that chipping container blocked the canal for like a couple months? Well, this is going to be way way worse. It's not just blocking the Swiss Canal, it's blocking the entire region from trade. What happens if the Red Sea gets shut down for many, many, many more months? Well, if the Red Sea were to be shut down to ships, it would disrupt the global supply chain a heck of a lot.

Goods transported through the Red Sea such as oil, natural gas, and various other Commodities would face significant delays and increased Transportation costs that would go through the damn roof. This disruption would lead to a domino effect affecting everybody around the world. For example, oil prices are almost certain to Surge due to reduced availability and increased Transportation expenses Companies relying on just in time delivery strategies which struggle quite a bit actually to maintain their produ uction schedules, impacting their overall efficiency and profitability. You'd have many, many companies going bankrupt.

Many American and European shipping companies would go bankrupt overnight, creating supply chain crises. The shutdown would of course, also strain diplomatic relations and force countries to use much, much less effective and very, very costly trade routes, many of which would have to be done in concession with countries that aren't really allies. Now so far, what have we seen in terms of a reaction from markets and specifically oil? From the Guardian quote, oil prices have risen sharply after Iran Rejected calls to end support for attacks by Houie rebels on vessels in the Red Sea and sent a warship to the key trading room. in the first trading session of the New Year Brent crude Rose $173 or more than 2% to $78.75 a barrel on Tuesday while Us West Texas intermediate crude was at $733 a barrel up $1.71 or 2.4% Prices were driven Higher by fears of Supply disruption amid the tensions in the Red Sea which leads to the S Canal.

Now that said, later on, they gave back some of those gains and quite Frank Frankly I mean markets, oil markets, volatility markets even Equity markets seem to be in a bit of a wait and see situation. They haven't jumped to the conclusion yet that this Iran warship is going to escalate further into a fullblown direct Us and Iran confrontation. But they aren't Crossing it off the table either. What about the S&P 500 and the overall Market I Thought we're heading into a year beginning of the year pump and then an ending of Q1 beginning of Q2 dump.

Is this going to derail the next stage of the rally before it ever even happens? I Don't think so. in my opinion, very very unlikely unless you get a direct confrontation like tomorrow. Take a look at this data set compiled by B Spoke Investment Group last year despite two big bank failures fed raising rates the last major credit agency downgrading US debt, the UAW strike the house Ain The Speaker Hamas Invading Well, despite all of these things, markets continued rallying and getting to newer and newer highs. Now that we are heading into rate Cuts it's hard to imagine that markets don't continue pumping through the beginning of the year as Markets buy the rumor and then inevitably sell the news later on.

Furthermore, if you look at how the stock market performed during an election year, it's pretty solid. In an election year, 76.6% of the time the market goes up, the average annual return is 10.3% and on top of that, January tends to have the highest average and median returns of any month of the year. So in terms of bullish bets on spy I'd argue the setup is still solid for at minimum a few weeks rally. So anyways, that brings us into plays and play updates.

So yesterday we were talking about Mara Lovely Mara as a dip recovery play with the expectation that she would drop to 20 and then bounce. Quite frankly, this morning she had a nice 20% or so bounce in the pre-market and then failed and sold off back to the red directional SMA line. My thesis on her though is still the same. Watch for a bounce on the $20 support and prediction: $35 new cycle high in early 2024 option idea Mara 35 strike calls expiring April 19th I Think that gives quite a lot of time for this to play out now of course.

be careful though, because it's not going to be unexpected at all if this red directional SMA line drop causes Mara to dump a leg more, but again I believe you'll see her F support fairly quickly probably at $20 and then given the bullish Trends in Bitcoin heading into having and the ETF approval and so on and so forth I Believe that she's going to see a nice momentum Trend throughout Q1. Now for those playing bullish bets on stocks whether it's Mara spy and Amazon and the likes, well, you may want to start looking at a hedge with Uvxy, a hedge for uncertainty going back up if Iran does further escalate in the Middle East or any number of other things happen. Well, all of a sudden Uvx is going to be the first one to Skyrocket It is trading really really low relative to 10 20 year history and it's hard to imagine that this isn't eventually going to pick up. Now are you wondering how to trade these stocks? and ETFs Well, options are a key way folks.

You got to start the new year off right by learning a new skill. Options Trading It looks pretty difficult, but with our guide A through Z guide for complete beginners Well you are going to learn how to take your trading to the next level. Let's be real folks. it's very, very difficult to trade with a small account because there's just not much leveraging power you have.

But with options, you can leverage the moves quite a lot. Of course, if you don't know what you're doing, you can leverage your losses quite a lot too. So you got to learn how to do things. But anyways, we just launched a brand new A through Z program for learning how to trade options for complete beginners and we'd love to have you there.

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But I Think that you're going to want to learn to trade options this year because there's going to be a lot of moves to play off of both. To the upside, and also to the downside, options are the perfect way to play those moves. Anyways, that caps off today's video. We'll see you in the next one.