Trading in NYMEX Crude won’t start for another hour, so I’ve had to imagine a pattern to predict how things might turn out. It is a foregone conclusion that quotes will open significantly lower, since Trump, as fully expected, has announced on a Sunday yet another ceasefire. This dog-and-pony show continues to impress because of what I call the “next idiot” theory (which I’ve explained many times in the chat room). It holds that if there is breaking news which a trader working at 305 Wacker Drive believes will cause his colleagues at 307 Wacker Drive to sell crude contracts, then he, too, is obliged to sell or face an avalanche. This is irrespective of whether anyone actually believes that Trump’s weekly, ginned-up announcement about “talks” will cause peace to break out in the region or even ease the tense situation in the Strait of Hormuz. Allowing for the ‘next-idiot’ effect to determine this afternoon’s opening price, I’ve imagined an initial bar that has Sep Crude trading down to around $81, about $5 or $6 lower than Friday’s settlement price. I doubt the selling will be much worse than that, implying the bullish pattern projecting to as high as 91.70 still holds. That is what I expect to happen once it becomes clear by mid-week or so that Trump’s cessation of air strikes against Iran has, as we might have expected, achieved nothing.