🚨 Profit Panel is live at 9:30 a.m. ET🚨
[tap to join us for Profit Panel]
U.S. military strikes on Iranian tankers sparked an energy market split that doesn’t happen every day.
Markets can throw you a curveball when you least expect it.
Over the weekend, U.S. forces took out three Iranian tankers — bringing the recent total to five following retaliatory operations in the region. You’d think the whole energy complex would move together, right?
Crude up, gasoline up — the usual playbook.
Not this time.
Crude oil climbed about $3 throughout the day, which makes sense given the supply shock coming out of the Middle East. But here’s where it got interesting: Gasoline started selling off hard around 7 a.m. and dropped about $0.10 per gallon.
That’s not something you see on your average Tuesday.
The broader backdrop matters too. The U.S.-Iran crisis has introduced intense geopolitical volatility, triggering chaotic price swings across global markets.
When geopolitical pressure reaches that level, volatility can spread well beyond energy and make headline-driven trades even harder to navigate.
Why the Split?
You do see crude and gasoline move in opposite directions, but the size of this move stood out. My read? The market is pricing in two different stories.
Crude is catching a bid because supply disruptions are real when tankers get taken offline. But gasoline? That’s telling a demand story.
With crude prices where they are and inflation coming in, people might be buying less gas or traveling less — and the market is already sniffing that out.
It’s one of those days when the headlines and the tape don’t line up the way the textbooks say they should.
That’s also why repeatable market anomalies can be more useful than trying to predict every geopolitical turn. By focusing on one specific anomaly in the oil market and applying it to the same ticker each week, you can build a more consistent process instead of chasing every headline.
A key concept here is the natural price boundary. It’s an anomaly that can limit how far oil moves in either direction during a given week.
It isn’t a guarantee, but it can provide a useful framework for judging when a move may be stretched.
What It Means for Your Watchlist
If you trade energy, this kind of divergence creates opportunity — but only if you’re watching both sides of the complex.
A geopolitical headline doesn’t guarantee everything moves in lockstep.
Crude can rally on supply fears while refined products price in weaker consumer demand. Combine that relationship with a repeatable boundary-based framework, and you have a better way to separate a disciplined setup from a knee-jerk trade.
Keep your eyes on how these markets behave relative to each other. When they split like this, there’s usually a story beneath the surface — and that’s where the edge lives.
Geof Smith
Geof Smith TradingÂ
Follow along and join the conversation for real-time analysis, trade ideas, market insights and more!
- Telegram: https://t.me/+lm8_Nq3Su104NmFh
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FinancialWars
Important Note: No one from the ProsperityPub team or Geof Smith Trading will ever contact you directly on Telegram.
*This is for informational and educational purposes only. There is inherent risk in trading, so trade at your own risk.Â
P.S. My No. 1 Gold Strategy Drops Live at 10 AM ET
Gold just hit a three-month high, but chasing the top is a trap. My commodity method had a perfect 2025 record without a single losing trade.
The Zoom room is open right now, and I’ll be stepping in at 10:00 AM ET sharp to show you how to trade gold this week.
Click Here to Log Into the Zoom Room
Disclaimer: Since 12/05/2024, the trading approach discussed today has published 82 trade alerts. 75 of 84 have returned as winning trades, for a 89.3% win rate. The average return per trade, winners and losers combined, has been 6.07% on an average holding period of 12 days. With a $5,000 starting stake, every trade targets about $841 in returns, and every trade you see today will be based on that $5,000 starting stake unless otherwise stated.
