Michael Fitzpatrick Iran Quotations

The weekly inventory numbers caught the market by surprise again. The unanimous UN decision demanding Iran stop nuclear enrichment probably rekindled concern that Iran will use oil as a political weapon.

If the stock market were not making five- and six-year highs, Iran and the U.S. were fast friends and the Nigerian militants were stuffing flowers in the gun muzzles of the Nigerian army -- then we might be worried about a reversal, but not now.

It's high noon at the Security Council. Prices will rise because tensions are high. Iran has said that it would not specifically use oil as a weapon but now they are changing their tune.

Apparently, the market thinks that OPEC is set to simply roll over the existing production quota in the upcoming meeting. Even so, there will probably be provocative comments from both Iran and Venezuela.

The UN-Iran conflict will recede a bit in coming sessions since the UN won't look back into the situation for 30 days. Iran now has 30 days to posture, it can issue some harsh words and in the end negotiate better terms when the deadline approaches.

Even in a bull market you get periods of a little relief, and this is one of them. Some of the Iranian words today were conciliatory. In reality nothing has changed and the market will soon rise again.

While Iran seems to be going back and forth on the use of oil as a political weapon, that issue will probably remain in the forefront for the near term, at least.

With Iran indicating on Thursday that they would not stop enriching uranium, fears of sanctions surfaced which probably prompted fresh speculative buying.