The massive terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel over the weekend will unsettle the geopolitical world for the foreseeable future. The economic implications are potentially too grave to be treated merely as a tradeable event; investors should instead be thinking about safeguarding capital. Will the price of crude spike to $117 or higher, as predicted here last week? A chart supporting that conclusion appears in retrospect to have been prescient. However, I doubt the $117 price will be hit until the global supply of oil has actually been curtailed.
Hezbollah’s entry into the war could cause this to happen overnight. They’ve been firing rockets at strategic targets in Israel, a provocation that threatens to unleash a retaliatory response frightening to imagine. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP), for one. The use of a pulse weapon would amount to Hiroshima without the body count, forever altering the way war is conducted. Cities, regions or even nations could go dark instantly, transported back to the Stone Age when everything powered by electricity ceases to work.
Whatever happens, the possibilities are too complex, and potentially too disastrous, for investors to handicap. These all-too-interesting times have become still more interesting, leaving all of us at the mercy of the news as the holiday season approaches.
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