Folks, you better buckle up because we've got three major items to discuss. Number one: The Middle East is on the brink and Iran is getting more and more Reckless after attacking its neighbor and close Ally Pakistan It is amping up the rhetoric against the US and has used its proxies to attack us Personnel housed in Iraq Number two, we just hit all-time highs in the stock market markets, rallied aggressively right up to that all-time high resistance and then beat around the bush for nearly a month. But as of Friday finally accepted record highs. which means now the game has completely changed.

We need to discuss what happens historically when markets break into all-time highs. The gist out survey results from Global fund managers making the decisions on where big moneyy is going next and what you need to know. And then finally, number three. we're going to be capping off with what plays are likely to have the highest returns in this environment, some options, ideas, a specific shipping company that is benefiting a lot from this Middle East crisis, and some other key updates that you're going to want to know if you're a stock market participant.

Let's Get Right to Work and the only thing I ask in return is that you hit that ravaging like button. And also don't forget to subscribe. Okay, let's start with the Middle East Iran is backing itself into a corner and is getting more and more Reckless by the minute. day after day, it seems like their intention is to blow up the entire Middle East and this is escalating into a total disaster.

and by attacking not just their sworn enemies like the US and Israel, but also close allies like Pakistan. Well, it's becoming more and more apparent that Iran is both Reckless and also increasingly trapped into a corner. And quite frankly, markets right now are expecting this conflict to continue to worsen with shipping prices exploding to no end. Why? Well, because if you are shipping anything anything, you have fewer and fewer routes.

and again, the Sez Canal route is the second most important trade route in the world and the sea that leads into that. The Red Sea is blocked by the Houthis and other Iranian proxies. Not using this Red Sea route often means that shipping companies have to add another 10 days to their shipping, which adds a lot to the cost of just shipping something through that area. So Global shipping container prices are completely completely exploding and there are some companies that are actually milking the hell out of this.

but we're going to discuss that later in the play section. However, back to the context here. Of course, Iran has always been a major destabilizing force in the Middle East. It hasn't been the only one, but it's been the most major one for many years now.

Iran has been the major supporter and supplier of groups like Hezbollah Hamas, the Houthis, and a ton of other militant groups throughout the entire Middle East. Without those groups being in existence, the Middle East would be a much much more peaceful place. but Iran is made sure that that's not the case. These groups do Iran's bidding and and keep Iran powerful throughout the region.

Otherwise, Iran would just be confined, their power just confined to their domestic borders. But as of late, you're seeing Iran become more and more Reckless with their decision-making Not only is Iran now more than ever directly attacking Sovereign areas whether allies with them or not, but it's escalating conflict with the West from Us Today quote: Iranian backed militants attacked Us and Iraqi troops Saturday at a base in Western Iraq with ballistic missiles and Rockets and some American Service members are being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries. According to Us officials, the attack with ballistic missiles on the AL Assad base represents an escalation of the dozens of attacks mounted by the militant. Since Israel's invasion of Gaza until Saturday, most of the attacks have been relatively minor and involved drones and Rockets in Iraq in Syria ballistic missiles can carry much much heavier explosive loads.

Now I do want to take a moment to give a shout out to our troops serving over seas. Thank you for your sacrifice and we hope for a fast recovery. But context for Us civilians: This isn't the first time Iranian backed militias have launched attacks against us and Coalition troops, but this is one of the biggest yet and it's adding to the escalation that we're seeing week after week after week after week. Now on another front over in Syria While Iran just accused Israel of launching an air strike on the Syrian Capital Damascus that killed senior Iranian military figures, this happened just yesterday.

And of course, yes, another round of retaliation is promised. It seems every other day Iran is promising to retaliate greatly and painfully to another country. Now here's the thing you have to understand: understand: Iran is not alone in the Middle East. Yes, Iran is one of the most powerful forces in the Middle East but it is not the sole power when it's going and sending missiles to attack varying countries and supplying unpredictable and radical militant groups throughout the region with endless weapons.

Well, it's in the meantime pissing off a lot of other countries, which makes Iran a pariah and makes it more and more backed into a corner with fewer and fewer options. You look at the strikes Iran did just last week the missiles that flew into Pakistan Iraq and Syria You look at the attacks that the Iran funded and supplied and kept alive. Houthis have been doing well. They've been attacking a key trading route that has billions and billions of trade go through it every day.

and these other players in the Middle East they're very, very very pissed off. For example, just look at the Saudi Saudi Arabia Iran and Saudi Arabia have been in proxy wars for years. Saudi Arabia since October 2015 has had innumerable attacks from the Iran backed toothies. So if you're Saudi Arabia right now, you are absolutely pissed.

Not only have you had to deal with these attacks for years, but now your major trade route, something that's more than half your coast and and one of the most important components of your economy's ability to transport things is basically completely shut down because of this Iran back group. So you're absolutely pissed at the same time. I Mean you have missiles flying over your country and the entire region looks like it's going to collapse if the region collapses. Who do you think is going to suffer too? Well you as well.

You don't want all these uncontrolled and unpredictable militant groups all around your country stopping your country from being able to operate. Yes, the Saudis have been bombing Yemen territory to weaken the Houthis for years, but it hasn't worked because Iran is able to just keep sending them more and more weapons and more and more supplies. But if you're Saudi Arabia and you're the West and you're other Coalition allies, well guess what now is your opening. If Iran continues to act more and more irrational and draw in more and more direct conflict, Well, all of a sudden, you're going to get the situation where you're going to encourage Saudi Arabia and other interested parties to use this as an opening to silence the Houthis and other militants once and for all, you're already seen a lot of silencing of the Houthis from the US strikes that just happened a week or two ago, completely destroying some of their key key bases.

This is one of the best opportunities for Saudi Arabia to wipe out the rest of them and build a bigger coalition to wipe out all of the militants in the region that are threatening trade and the world Would be fine with it because the Houthis are completely destroying this major trade route. Now, Why is that a problem? Well, it's a problem because Iran would never allow its militants to get wiped out without massive, massive retaliation, which would lead to a much much much bigger direct conflict. But back up a second. Why does Iran even care? Remember if Iran loses its militant groups loses any influence it has outside of its domestic territory, which would make Iran a completely isolated, weakened power, which then would make it more susceptible to threats to its own domestic borders.

So Iran would never allow its militants to get wiped out without a significant amount of Bloodshed and a significant retaliation. Which means that if Saudi, Arabia, the West or anybody wants to take this opening to wipe out the Houthis completely, well, you better bet that the overall battle, the overall geopolitical crisis is going to completely blow. Okay, moving on. while Shai is hitting the fan over in the Middle East while markets here in the United States are hitting all-time highs as of Friday, the S&P 500 joined the NASDAQ and the Dow at hitting a new record high Previous alltime high for the S&P 500 was hit January 3rd, 2022 and this new all-time high was hit January 19th, 2024 on Friday.

More than two years later, there's about 252 trading days in a year. You add the two years up and you get about 500 trading days. A little bit more than that without a new record. So you pull up the historical data for S&P 500 performance after snapping a streak of 500 trading days or more without a record.

Well, the average onewe return is around half a% down Negative: 0.41% on average, Negative: 0.59% median. So a week after the average is a slight selloff, markets close higher just 40% of the time. So that suggests this next week would be negative. but in a one-month Horizon 80% of the time markets close higher.

Averaging a plus 1.05% up median plus 0.83% up. 3-month average is plus 2.82% Median is is 2.36% Markets close higher 60% of the time, the 6 months your average is at 5.93% returns and median is at 7.81% Markets close higher 80% of the time. So based on this statistic set, markets are primed to pump even higher. What about how markets perform after they already had a very, very bullish oneyear period like we just had in 2023? Well, the average after 252 trading days AKA one year of normal days? Well, the mean return is 14% the median is 13.4% and the percent of time where you had positive returns in the situation is 92.9% of the time.

So this data is also suggesting a pump for 2024? What about during election years? How do markets perform well? Market Stanley The Stanley at Morgan just posted this yesterday. There have been 23 elections since the S&P 5 Hundo Index began. In election years, 19 of the 23 years provided positive performance. 19 of the 23 years when a Democrat was an office and a new democrat was elected, the total return for the year averaged 11% When a Democrat was in office and a republic Republican was elected, the total return for the year average 12.9% So whether you get a Democrat or Republican winning at the end of the year, history suggests big overall returns.

Markets simply tend to do very well during election years, and there's a million reasons for that. For example, deficit spending tends to increase rapidly during election years since there's very, very little ramifications for doing so, and huge, huge benefit to overspending to pump the economy. Quite frankly, when you go and you overspend in an election year, well, the data in terms of how much that gr the deficit doesn't come out until after the election. So why not just pump the economy and make yourself look better and make people feel better during the year they're voting? And of course, there's also the dynamic where you tend to see a lot of political pressure on the supposedly unbiased Federal Reserve to cut rates.

This year, you are seeing the FED talk about cutting rates as well, which you could talk about whether that's politically pressured or not. But at the end of the day, these two things serve to help pump the market and the economy. But I Want to discuss the FED effect in a little bit more detail here. So a lot of the time people overly focus on the FED as controlling markets through direct interest rate cuts and Hikes but that's just one tool that it has.

It also buys and sells Securities Take a look at this chart here. in purple you have the S&P 500 and in yellow you have the Federal Reserve balance sheet. You can see here that as the FED unloaded, its balance sheet markets unloaded as well. And then as the FED started pumping back into markets, markets pumped up, easing us to where we are currently.

Now here's the thing though. while the FED hasn't begun cutting rates, the FED is indeed pumping at its highest level in more than 2 years. Which means that even if sentiment just stayed the same and no one wanted to buy or sell a single new share based on the underlying companies or the economy or whatever, well, markets would pump more because the FED is forcing them to. A lot of people say markets can't go up anymore.

Well, if the FED continues to pump it, of course they can. To make an analogy, if you're going and you're filling up a gas tank, well, even if that gas tank has a massive leak, well as long as you're putting more gasoline into it than it's leaking out, the gas tank is going to continue to flow up Now of course if somebody lights a match. but when you're looking at the stock market right now, we're enjoying the effect effects of that gas tank continuing to flow up. But anyways, what do markets see as the biggest threat right now? Well, Geopolitics.

And we've been talking about geopolitics a lot on this channel because I believe that's increasingly going to be the biggest worry because it's escalated bigger and bigger week after week after week. Since those October 7th attacks, more and more countries have been drawn in. More and more attacks have happened. In the beginning, you just had the attacks confined to one small region Israel and Gaza now it's spread throughout the entire Middle East And yes, they do have economic hard Landing as the number two biggest here.

but I Don't even think this is really an accurate way to look at it because because if you directly ask those same managers and investors, that said, this was their second biggest worry, well, if you directly ask them if they expect a soft Landing SL no Landing or a hard Landing in 2024, Well, 79% believe we will have a soft Landing or no landing and only 177% believe it will be a hard Landing So the real threat right now according to Big Money Investors is is not the hard Landing it's geopolitics. As Iran starts attacking more and more and backing itself more and more into a corner. It's getting more and more desperate to escalate this battle to a whole new level which can send fear, shock waves everywhere. So what do you do with all this information as a Trader Well, you milk the hell out of it.

You find some strategic plays. Firstly, let's go ahead and start with spy calls. Betting that markets are going to pump more before the massive collapse on January 1st, we made an argument that February 2nd expiring 480 calls would be a good play because markets were likely to break above alltime highs by February 2nd and that has indeed come true. That has come true and now those calls are in the money.

But of course again, because markets tend to have bad historical performance the week after a new all-time high I'd argue it's time to consider locking in profits and moving on to a different farther out spy play. If you think spy is going to pump more heading into the end of Q1 and then into the beginning of Q2, why not stretch farther out to say April expiring calls, you can now pick up 500 strike calls expiring April 19th for around $541 to $546 Even if Spy doesn't pump to 500 or beyond, the value of these contracts can still appreciate a lot as Spy gets close. So if you are playing a short-term pump in Q1 Q2 these are the ones that you're going to probably want to play number two. As we mentioned earlier, the geopolitical situation blocking the Red Sea and Su's Route is causing shipping prices to absolutely explode.

And of course, there is a play on that ticker symbol Z Zim has been experiencing a massive explosion in price since the Houi Attack situation started and you can see how fast volume has been increasing the last few months as the stock has broken out to new cycle high after new cycle High Why Well, because Zim is very very much focused on East Mediterranean and Israeli ports and Investors Traders see them as a big benefactor of the situation because they are one of the biggest shipping players in the Middle East Gulf region one of the biggest experts and while they can no longer travel the Red Sea safely, they can now reroute the ships through other routes that are alternatives like through Africa but they are charging a huge, huge premium to do so. If you have all these customers that need things shipped through that area, well, they still need things shipped, but now you can charge them a lot more because they have to go all these other routes that are much much longer so it's open season for your business. It's a great opportunity for you to add unreasonably long periods of time to your shipping and unreasonable prices to your shipping because people have no other option. which is why people are buying the stock so quickly right now.

At the same time it short interest is around 25% according to NYSC and Fintel, which means what? Well, it means that as Momentum Bruis, it could trigger a bigger rush to cover shorts, causing even more upward pressure. So play ideas on this Well, of course you can play straight up shares, but a more efficient play on S Alation of this crisis would be options dating out a few months, giving this some time to really play out and explode. My pick would be April 19th expiring 20 strike calls. They can be picked up right now for about 58 to 60 cents and and they have ample liquidity and ample time for this crisis to accelerate.

I Would definitely keep those on your radar. Now by the way, Speaking of options, quick plug if you are looking to take advantage of our 50% off sale on Zip Trader options coupon code: hello 2024 expires very soon. If you want to learn options and you are a complete beginner, well this is the program for you. Make sure to check it out with that First link down below and remember if you want 50% off coupon, Code Hello 2024 Number Three Let's talk MAA Mara's on a downtrend after her beautiful Euphoria cycle.

we are watching for the bottoming out and then rebound cycle with the thesis that she'll break far above those cycle Highs at $31 and. 30 before April 2024, take a look at previous Bitcoin having history and then look at what Mara has on her balance sheet and how well she's able to mine Bitcoin and how much Bitcoin is likely to be trading out before APR and put all that together and it makes for a very, very strong thesis for Mara Lovely! Mara Anyways, that caps off today's video. Make sure to hit that ravishing like button and subscribe and we will see you in the next one.