Once again the prospect of a war with Iran hangs in the air this morning. True to form pundits in the mainstream media are falling all over each other peddling opinion pieces rife of impending doom & gloom. The lowest hanging fruit, especially when it comes to any conflict in the Middle East, is of course the prospect of an explosion in crude prices as purportedly evidenced by a record spike overnight in the Brent and (strangely) the WTI futures that briefly scraped the 20% mark.

September has finally arrived and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve made no secret about summer being my least favorite time of the year, especially as I’m not a big fan of excessive heat mixed with humidity. Plus here in Valencia summer brings with it troves of selfie-snapping tourists clogging up our city as well as the beaches.

One of the most difficult but crucial lessons I had to learn as a trader was how to pick your markets, and most importantly when to recognize that additional input in effort does not result in more monetary output, perhaps even to the contrary. As a general rule, attempting to force order and directional bias onto a volatile or even borderline chaotic market environment can only lead to frustration, stress, and in the end financial losses.

TL;DR: You can’t draw blood from a stone.

I take it you’re not the only one who’s somewhat baffled by what transpired over the past two trading sessions. We’ve gone from frolicking near all time highs to a double whammy wipe out in less than 48 hours. As I’m typing this the E-Mini futures are ticking 90 handles below where they started the week. So what exactly happened here?