The impending collapse of Iraq will bring even more violence and chaos to a Middle East that has been on the verge of a world-shaking eruption. Regardless of whether ISIS jihadis move on Baghdad or consolidate their recent gains in Mosul and Tikrit, the price of crude is about to soar. This will happen immediately and precipitously if Iranian troops sent to help Maliki fight the hated Sunnis turn Iraq into a war zone.  Under the circumstances, a bull trade in crude futures seemed like a no-brainer when I posted a long-trade entry in the chat room shortly before at 4 a.m. Thursday. July Crude was hovering around 104.79 at the time but has since shot up to 107.36 and shows no sign of backing off. I’d been using a purely technical target of $119 per barrel for several weeks, but before Mosul fell I was clueless about what might cause such a run-up. Now I know.

Touts for Friday include a bullish trade in July Silver and potential scalping opportunities from either side of the market in the June E-Mini S&P. If you’re keen to trade the latter, keep in mind that a long would be going against a bigger-picture short we’d already established two ticks off the all-time high at 1954.75.