Modi Is Under Fire ...

 ... one of the MPs in India's Parliament accuses Modi of kneeling before Israel while Khamenei became a martyr. 

The timing (and essence) of Modi's visit to Israel couldn't have been worse. And that is to put it mildly. 

Now to some "dawning" of the reality on those who thought they knew. Yeah, "paper" everything is a derivative enabler for speculation and manipulation. 

The oil futures paper market is likely underestimating the massive supply disruption that a closed Strait of Hormuz is creating in physical crude and fuel supply globally. Crude futures prices briefly spiked early this week to $119 per barrel, before retreating to the $90s and trading at $100 a barrel early on Friday in Asian trade. However, the premium of physical Dubai crude has surged to $38 per barrel over its paper equivalent, according to data compiled by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell. The wide gap between paper and physical prices suggests that supply is being immediately choked off. But traders on the paper market appear to believe that the record-high emergency stocks release and the U.S. Administration’s scrambling to calm the markets with comments that the war will end soon would ease the upward pressure on oil prices.

I want to reiterate--average "trader" on any paper market is nothing but a product (at best) of some MBA program from Ivy League degree mill and knows nothing about real world and how it operates. It is a crowd ready to buy any political BS as long as it serves short term speculation and profit. I will reiterate--the US doesn't have strategic intelligence and strategic forecasting as a craft in principle. What passes for both is an academic and ideological fraud.