Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺

My latest full length video with @DFA_Analyst is now live. In it we cover in detail the impact of the war in Iran, examine the role of the Strait of Hormuz and alternative pathways for Middle East oil. youtu.be/ALENWpLBOxU?t=…

@Mayhem4Markets I'm more of a bag of snakes and in the Thames kinda guy.

We need to do this here.

If dramatically more Middle East energy production infrastructure get's destroyed, one wonders how supply arrangements will evolve. Would it be purely about top dollar or would it come down to alliances. If you are my friend you get what you need, if you are not....

@lanceWhitford Nah, it's a bit of a dead zone in terms of main road servos.

@AvidCommentator Was there another servo across the road with long lines and prices jacked up?

I had a meeting today in the North of Sydney and I drove past a servo that had completely ran out of petrol and diesel. The price board was blacked out and the plastic signs were on the pump telling folks. A strange sight in the middle of a major city.

As the world comes to terms with the entirely predictable fallout of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a thought. This is a fraction of the turmoil the world would experience if China and the U.S + Japan went to war over Taiwan. Building resilient supply chains and frankly a resilient civilization is costly and hard, but the choice is rely on China and potentially get bushwhacked by a major crisis or spend big on being self reliant.

@tax_oz Indeed, I tweeted about it last night, its about 36 hours worth of fuel. A welcome development.

@AvidCommentator Did you see this Tarric?

Australia is in deep deep trouble with its fuel supplies. Not that low stock levels is anything new.

This raises a question for the Trump administration and the world. Does the U.S potentially strike at the Iranian held Persian Gulf Islands with the USS Tripoli and her marines or wait for double the amphibious assault capability to arrive in about 3 weeks?

An absolute master-class in damage control saving the ship.

Aussie 2y yields up 10bps this morning to 4.72%. Yield on 10s the highest since 2011. OIS sees a May hike as 72% probability. 70bps worth of higher cash rate now priced into the curve, which is bear-flattening rapidly.

Yep this is pretty much the short term future

But are they going to realistically achieve that? Its looking more like no regime change and the new boss being worse than the old boss. Meanwhile, U.S allies like Thailand and the Philippines are doing it tough with energy supplies and it gets much worse from here. People in Asia generally dont give a crap about Iran, they care about their own basic needs first and foremost, and they will remember when they were thrown into crisis. Particularly if Trump ends up going home without effecting a lasting change.

The IRGC / Iranian regime is despotic and dangerous. Dismantling it will free up the Middle East to pursue peace and prosperity least of all for the Iranian people. As a central justification, this seems fundamentally admirable to me. Consequences matter, that is agreed, but to dismiss the obvious is absurd. Oil prices and free flow of crude will increase with a safe and stable Persian gulf. Not everything is measured by GDP in short terms. The west needs a longer term outlook and we should all be rooting for a successful and decisive win for the US and Israel. That to me is obvious. The Iranian people deserve no less.

I am aware of the theory that Trump is attempting to take Iranian oil off the table for China. But realistically is it worth alienating most of the developed world with a totally avoidable energy and economic crisis, followed by a famine in places if the war continues long term

@Neal_Bunkum I want to be deeply wrong about this, but my feeling is in that scenario they throw printed money at the problem and we rerun a version of the 1970s.

@AvidCommentator The question is how the government handles it. If they cave to the public sector unions and grant inflation relieving pay rises to all public servants and/or cost of living handouts - they will make things worse. Given that housing construction will drop because of higher input

This is absolutely bloody disastrous. How much global electricity and fertiliser production is gone from this one attack. One.

Called it. The inevitable next step in a sustained crisis will be burning billions to support high housing prices, even if the country is literally crumbling around us from a lack of fuel. This is Australia.

@Neal_Bunkum Exactly mate. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sober post war assessment reveal significantly more damage.

@AvidCommentator And that’s what is reported.

Energy infrastructure is f***ing fragile. Get even a relative handful of drones and missiles through in the wrong place, secondary explosions and hey presto what we have seen in Qatar, ~3% of global LNG export production gone for 3+ years. Its bad enough the Iranians have been randomly targeting bits of energy infrastructure from the get go, but for the U.S and Israeli's to open that door even wider was thoroughly idiotic. If enough oil infrastructure gets destroyed wholesale it is a guaranteed global recession and in parts of the developing world famine, and that is close to a best case scenario. Worst case scenario is a global depression and a famine that in conjunction with social instability could cost tens of millions of lives. These are the stakes if things go badly south in the Middle East. As if the current clusterf*** wasnt bad enough. News screenshot: Bloomberg

@Mayhem4Markets Another half a dozen rounds of energy infrastructure destruction tit for tat, he is going to have a guaranteed global recession on his watch. Not to mention the inevitable "Trump Famine" if destruction of energy infrastructure continues.

Trump has no idea what he's doing.

RBC’s Helima Croft: We think there may be too much emphasis on the “TACO” trade, as Iran could continue attacks, even if President Trump seeks to call time, to restore a measure of deterrence against future American military action.

'Chalmers’ budget pain: Productivity down, migration up' Just a little reminder it was being projected by government that the housing deficit was getting larger by the day, even before migration was to be ramped even higher. afr.com/policy/economy…

We’re hitting new levels here…