Rising tensions with Iran sent oil markets into panic. What happens if the conflict escalates?

“So we get these times in the markets, in periods of great uncertainty, where you have real information that is uncertain, right? You don’t know, with 20% to 30% of the world’s oil going through the strait of Hormuz, if that is going to be cut off entirely,” financial expert Carol Roth tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck.

“Then that is exacerbated by financial markets, and there are two pieces to that. One is just when there are these periods of uncertainty, sometimes you get, from hedge funds that have large positions and sometimes levered positions in the market, something called de-grossing, where they just get rid of everything and they go to cash, and they go, ‘We’re just going to sit and wait out and see what happens,'” she explains.

“And then you get the algorithms, and the algorithms are jumping on headlines, which are rapidly changing and uncertain, and other algorithms are following those first algorithms. So you get this exacerbation of volatility, something where ... uncertainty and fear drives an outcome in the market, and then it becomes exacerbated by the dynamics of the financial market,” she adds.

Roth notes that the “good news” is that these tend to be “short-lived.”

“Because once there becomes a price mismatch between what certain people think is reality and the prices that are reflected,” she tells Glenn, “then greed drives in, they buy things up, and the prices kind of stabilize.”

But Glenn wants to unpack the “worst-case scenario.”

“Worst-case scenario: This drags on, this gets ugly. They find a way to mine the strait of Hormuz or whatever, and they shut it down. What will that do to the price of oil?” Glenn asks Roth.

“I mean, that’s a blowout. Minimum $120 to $150 a barrel. And if it really, you know, gets bad, I’ve seen a few analysts call that up to $250,” Roth answers.

“But let me give you some good news. The likelihood of that is sort of priced right now at like a 20% chance. So 80% chance that doesn’t happen,” she adds.

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