Alex

South Korea FICC manager with structured products(IR, Credit, FX, and Commodities) & Prop trading(cross-asset view)

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

<Notice>
제 글은 모두 개인적인 겸험, 생각 및 논리에 입각하여 작성되었음을 밝힙니다. 저는 이러한 글을 통해 그 어떠한 영리적 목적도 취하지 않으며 이는 순수하게 투자권유 행위와는 무관함을 다시 한 번 밝힙니다.

저의 글은 일반 개인투자자에게는 매우 ���적합하며, 거래하는 모든 종류의 기초자산과 상품속성 또한 개인에게 부적합합니다.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

You are right; I agree with your point. As I continue to read his saying, I can somewhat understand the overall direction that Iran wants to establish, which differs from the criticisms and grievances stemming from his hardline stance.

However, just as it was two weeks ago, I believe we must also acknowledge to some extent the fact that they are close to signing an MoU.

That is why it was necessary to set the balance of power at 50:50. Of course, this is also my bias.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

Looking at the interview, it seems yesterday's piece needs some revision.

Yesterday I wrote about the venue of the prospective agreement, the mechanism meant to enforce it, and the actors who will not sign it. Then I came across an SNN interview in which Mahmoud Nabavian, deputy chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Commission, read out the original text directly and launched a frontal attack on the negotiating team.

Nabavian is a hardliner opposed to the negotiations themselves, so his testimony carries its own bias. But on the strength of the fact that he was quoting the wording — and on the basis of the critique now coming from the hardline camp — yesterday's piece needs correcting.

First, the parts where my earlier analysis pointed in a similar direction.

What Held Up

1. The diagnosis of "a document that seals the disputes inside a 60-day window"

The starting point of my analysis was that this MOU is not a document that resolved the core disputes — nuclear, control, money — but one that repackaged them, deferred to "negotiations 60 days later," so that only the signing becomes possible. Nabavian's central objection takes aim at exactly this structure. He criticized the fact that all the major benefits accruing to Iran — $300 billion in reconstruction, an end to sanctions, resolution of the nuclear issue, US troop withdrawal — are bound up in a "final agreement" whose date is unclear and indefinitely extendable.

2. Hormuz — the "rebranding of control"

I had argued that what Iran gave up at Hormuz was only the word "toll," while the economic substance (service fees) and the operational substance (control) remained alive — and I forecast that "a reappraisal will come once the details of an Iranian-managed reopening are made public." This part turned out more dramatic than I expected. According to Nabavian's reading, from the hardline vantage point that control itself has evaporated from the text. He revealed that the earlier version's explicit name "Strait of Hormuz" had been generalized to "commercial ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman," and that the US had later inserted the word "unlimited." His claim: "arrangements" means not Iranian management but merely preparation for reopening, and nowhere in the text is Iranian control of the strait preserved. In other words, my initial read — "the claim to control is alive" — exists from the negotiating team's standpoint, but on the wording of the text itself it is exposed to the hardliners' rebuttal.

3. UNSC endorsement is not a guarantee

In the earlier piece I concluded with "the lesson of Resolution 2231 — institutionalization only raises the cost of exit; it does not prevent exit." Nabavian's critique of Clause 14 says the same thing in an insider's language: "A binding UNSC resolution is not a real guarantee. We already lived through this with the JCPOA and 2231 — the US withdrew, yet Iran alone was left trapped in international obligations, and only snapback became possible." He goes a step further: "Once the agreement goes to the Security Council, Iran does not control the text, and the US and other members slip in additional restrictions — missiles, arms, inspections (precisely the 2231 case)." Strong corroboration that my initial inference is being raised, identically, inside the Iranian parliament.

4. The US domestic bottleneck — Congress, OFAC, banks

Near the end of the piece I added the asymmetry that "Congress cannot guarantee non-aggression, but it can block sanctions relief." Nabavian confirms it outright: "The US cannot by itself cancel UNSC or IAEA resolutions, and many sanctions are congressional statutes that Trump cannot remove on his own." The three-layer bottleneck logic — OFAC, Congress, bank compliance — was being read the same way in Tehran.

5. The inversion of the money sequence

I had flagged the sequence inversion as central: "2013 was performance first, money later; this time it is a demand for upfront payment." Nabavian confirms the structure with more precise figures.

6. The documentation of Lebanon

My earlier piece read the shift from April's "end of war" carve-out to this round's "ceasefire across all fronts, Lebanon included" as deliberate engineering. Nabavian, too, concedes that Clause 1 at least was "improved in Iran's favor compared to the earlier version" — "end of war" was strengthened to "immediate and permanent end of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon," closing the room for the US to declare the war over while continuing 'defensive' operations.

Where My Initial Read Was Wrong

1. The "lifting is easy" dichotomy — I missed the re-sanctions axis

I split the new Security Council resolution into two parts: lifting the legacy sanctions (easy) and the new enforcement device (hard). That dichotomy dropped one crucial axis. As Nabavian points out — "the text does not prevent the US from imposing new sanctions the very next day, so the sanctions remain 100% effectively in place." Even if a nominal lifting occurs, if re-designation under a different name is possible, the lifting is hollow. What Iran really wants is not "lifting" but a "guarantee against re-sanctioning," and a lifting without that is meaningless to Iran. My earlier analysis, boxed into "lifting vs. enforcement," failed to see the third axis of re-sanctioning. This asymmetry interlocks with the nuclear section, too — Iran repeatedly provides written guarantees that it "will not produce or acquire nuclear weapons," while the US provides no equivalent guarantee on future sanctions.

2. The money figure — "half of $24 billion" was imprecise

Following the Mehr report, I wrote "half of $24 billion paid upfront." Nabavian's text is more precise. Iran's earlier proposal was "$12 billion immediately after signing, the rest within 30 days," and after the US rejected it, the current version weakened to the vague phrase "assets to be made available based on progress in negotiations" — with no definition of "progress" and no figure. In other words, the clear guarantee of "$12 billion immediately" has disappeared. My sequence-inversion thesis held, but the figure, and the direction of the retreat (toward terms even less favorable to Iran), need correcting. And this shows that the "$24 billion" headline making the rounds is not a settled condition but one version within the negotiating process.

3. Nuclear dilution — "domestic blend-down = an Iranian win" was an oversimplification

I framed the gap between "what Trump sold Netanyahu (removal)" and "what the document says (domestic blend-down)" as a US–Israel rift. The frame itself holds, but treating "domestic blend-down" as if it were an Iranian victory was an oversimplification. The actual wording Nabavian read out is "the dilution of all nuclear material on site, at minimum under IAEA supervision and under American considerations." It is domestic dilution — but dilution under American control. Hardliners see even this as "an American demand packaged in Iran's language." My earlier frame is not weakened by this (the US–Israel gap stands), but the nuance that "Iran fended off removal, so it amounts to a win" needs correcting.

4. The "clever Iranian design" frame — it tilted to one side

This is the part needing the largest correction. Taking the documentation of Lebanon as my starting point, I loaded the MOU rather heavily with Iranian strategic agency (deterrence + exit + raising the cost of erosion through multilateralization). Nabavian's whole testimony paints the opposite picture. He reads Hormuz, the nuclear file, the money, the withdrawal — nearly every item — as "American demands presented in Iran's language," i.e., the result of Iran retreating with each successive version. "Every time we submitted it and it changed, we retreated" is his summary.

The truth lies between two biases. I lean toward Iranian agency; Nabavian (as a hardliner) leans toward Iranian capitulation. Netting them out, the MOU is neither "Iran's clever trap" nor "Iran's total surrender," but something closer to a US-led asymmetric bargain in which Iran won one square — Lebanon — and gave ground on Hormuz, the nuclear file, and the money. Lebanon is nearly the only square Iran actively secured; on the rest, it was largely on the defensive. The center of gravity of my earlier piece has, in effect, collapsed.

What I Did Not Address Before, but Must Add After This Interview

1. The paradox of Iran freezing its own leverage

This is the strongest point, absent from my earlier analysis. According to Nabavian, during the waiting period Iran freezes — and proposed to freeze, itself — three things: its current nuclear status (no enrichment), the non-reconstruction of the damaged facilities, and the endurance of US sanctions. On top of that it accepts the continued presence of US forces in the region. In other words, if the final agreement is extended indefinitely, Iran freezes its own cards during the wait while the US keeps its sanctions and its troops in place. His rhetorical question — "Is this really America's proposal, or ours?" — is the crux.

This deepens my reading of the 60-day window by one level. I had seen the window only as "a time bomb where the nuclear and control disputes reignite." But before that, the window is a period in which Iran voluntarily ties down its supply and nuclear leverage. In the short term this is downward pressure on oil (Iran restrains its incentive to provoke), but it is simultaneously a stretch in which domestic hardliner discontent accumulates. The vagueness of the withdrawal clause ("US forces leave the area 'surrounding Iran' 30 days after the final agreement" — timing undefined, "surrounding" distance undefined) amplifies it. Lifting the blockade is nearly the only US-side implementation item with a fixed date; the rest of the US implementation is all linked to the variable "final agreement."

2. A "third generation" of guarantee discourse — the hardliners' automatic-retaliation trigger

I had organized Iran's guarantee model as first generation (congressional ratification) → second generation (multilateral institutions, the UNSC, economic lock-in). Nabavian rejects even that second generation and demands a third: instead of a UNSC resolution, write into the document automatic consequences — that if the US violates the deal, Iran exits the NPT, fully closes the Strait of Hormuz, and resumes enrichment at unlimited levels. In other words, inside Iran the guarantee discourse is reverting from "institution" to "consequence," and the negotiating team's second-generation line is being squeezed by hardliners who call it "a trap, too." Whether this comes to pass, however, remains uncertain.

3. The Iranian domestic bottleneck — symmetry with the Washington bottleneck

My earlier piece dealt only with the US-side bottleneck (Congress, OFAC, banks). Nabavian's public revolt itself shows that even if the negotiating team reaches a signature, friction can arise at Iran's domestic ratification and implementation stage. Because the Hormuz "control" wording and the nuclear "American considerations" wording are the focal targets of the hardliners, an interpretive struggle over these two clauses will erupt inside Iran after signing. A symmetric structure in which both sides' domestic politics gnaw at the agreement simultaneously — this was missing from the earlier analysis.

4. The instability of the text's very authenticity — a meta-level caveat

The most important meta-lesson. Even Nabavian conceded that he is "told that what I have seen is not the final version." An Iranian deputy committee chairman has, in effect, admitted that the reported text I relied on when writing the earlier piece may not be the final one. At the same time, his own reading may be a hardliner's selective citation. No single version should be believed as is.

Yet paradoxically, the very "differences" between those versions may be the most honest signal. Which word was added ("unlimited") and which words were dropped ("Strait of Hormuz," "compensation/reparations," "$12 billion immediately") reveal where the center of gravity of the negotiation is shifting.

It was only because yesterday and today happen to be holidays for me that I could attempt this at all. This exercise has given me no certainty whatsoever. The one thing I was able to confirm is the symbolic weight the MOU carries. Reading the posts that surfaced across various X accounts today, and Nabavian's interview, it is clear that — unlike what gets digested in the headlines — the two sides are negotiating under a thick layer of complexity around a particular documentary form: the wording, the nuance, and even the framework that follows. The US will have its own internal backlash, and Iran will have the same. This is precisely why I bought the Z26 calls: I wanted to step outside the optimism and the pessimism about the negotiations, and to place a bet closer to physics and mathematics — one with the higher probability. My efforts yesterday and today may, in truth, have been an absurd waste of time. Have a good weekend.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

https://t.co/slBzEb6M2A

[Arya Yadeghaar (Backup) @AryJeayBackup]

Iran’s DepChairman of the Parliament’s National Security Commission, Nabavian, in an interview with SNN:

The texts released about the MoU in the media are not complete, and are just excerpts.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

https://t.co/slBzEb6M2A

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

@Scott_Reardon_ I prefer to Brent of course, but damned SK house is only available for WTI..

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

Bought more quite big size

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

Bought WTI Dec26 strike at 80
I still have enough budgets so can add more on.

I know headline is important but I more focus on fundamentals.

Now time equation is ticking, I guess

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

@Lexonefun @Lord_sh15 Z26 target 80 dollar

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

@Lord_sh15 Yes sir

[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

NOW 🔴

Fars News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC: “Any speculation about signing in Switzerland or a face-to-face meeting is nothing but a mistaken understanding of American proposals and wishes.”

[Nader Itayim | ‌‌نادر ایتیّم @ncitayim]

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran's @MehrnewsCom out with details of "the 14-point draft" of the MOU, as per "a source close to the Iranian negotiating team:"

▪️Permanent and immediate cessation of war on all fronts, including Lebanon.
▪️America's commitment to non-interference in Iran's internal affairs and respect for the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
▪️Complete lifting of the naval blockade within 30 days
▪️America's commitment to withdrawing its forces from around Iran
▪️Reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days with Iranian arrangements
▪️Suspension of sanctions on the sale of oil, petrochemical products and derivatives and full access for Iran to its financial resources.
▪️The need for the United States and its allies to present reconstruction plans for Iran worth at least $300 billion.
▪️60 days of negotiations to reach a final agreement based on nuclear issues and the complete lifting of primary, secondary, US sanctions and resolutions of the UN Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency
▪️Reiterating Iran's commitment in the NPT not to produce nuclear weapons
▪️During the negotiations, the United States has committed not to increase its forces in the region and will not impose new sanctions.
▪️Release $24 billion in blocked Iranian funds during the 60-day period of final negotiations. Half of this amount must be made available to Iran before the negotiations begin.
▪️Establishing a monitoring mechanism to implement the agreement.
▪️The final agreement will be approved by a UN Security Council resolution.
▪️The final negotiations will not begin before the release of half of Iran's frozen funds, the suspension of Iran's oil sanctions, and the lifting of the naval blockade. The final agreement will be made solely on the fate of enriched materials and enrichment, the lifting of sanctions, and the Iranian economic reconstruction program. Discussions about Iran's missile program and support for resistance groups have been definitively removed from the agenda.

"As the Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced, this text still needs to be reviewed and finalized by the relevant institutions in Iran."

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

Mehr says the draft includes 60 days of negotiations toward a final agreement covering nuclear issues, full sanctions relief, reconstruction of Iran’s economy, and the fate of enriched material and enrichment.

What will mojtaba say? I’m seriously curious of it.

[Faytuks Network @FaytuksNetwork]

Iranian media outlet Mehr, citing a source close to Iran’s negotiating team, published what it says are new details from a reported 14-point draft memorandum between Iran and the U.S.

According to the report, the draft includes an immediate and permanent halt to fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon; a U.S. pledge not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs; the lifting of a maritime blockade within 30 days; and a U.S. commitment to withdraw forces from areas around Iran.

The reported draft also calls for reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days under Iranian arrangements, suspending sanctions on Iranian oil, petrochemical products and related revenues, and making Iranian financial resources fully accessible.

Mehr says the draft includes 60 days of negotiations toward a final agreement covering nuclear issues, full sanctions relief, reconstruction of Iran’s economy, and the fate of enriched material and enrichment.

The report says $24 billion in frozen Iranian funds would be released during the 60-day negotiation period, with half made available before talks begin.

According to Mehr, the draft excludes Iran’s missile program and support for “resistance groups” from the agenda, and any final agreement would be endorsed through a UN Security Council resolution.

Mehr adds that the text still requires review and final approval by the relevant Iranian institutions.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

According to Mehr, the draft excludes Iran’s missile program and support for “resistance groups” from the agenda, and any final agreement would be endorsed through a UN Security Council resolution.

So not agreements with missile. Then BIBI can be calm now?

[Faytuks Network @FaytuksNetwork]

Iranian media outlet Mehr, citing a source close to Iran’s negotiating team, published what it says are new details from a reported 14-point draft memorandum between Iran and the U.S.

According to the report, the draft includes an immediate and permanent halt to fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon; a U.S. pledge not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs; the lifting of a maritime blockade within 30 days; and a U.S. commitment to withdraw forces from areas around Iran.

The reported draft also calls for reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days under Iranian arrangements, suspending sanctions on Iranian oil, petrochemical products and related revenues, and making Iranian financial resources fully accessible.

Mehr says the draft includes 60 days of negotiations toward a final agreement covering nuclear issues, full sanctions relief, reconstruction of Iran’s economy, and the fate of enriched material and enrichment.

The report says $24 billion in frozen Iranian funds would be released during the 60-day negotiation period, with half made available before talks begin.

According to Mehr, the draft excludes Iran’s missile program and support for “resistance groups” from the agenda, and any final agreement would be endorsed through a UN Security Council resolution.

Mehr adds that the text still requires review and final approval by the relevant Iranian institutions.

[HFI Research @HFI_Research]

Canadian crude oil inventories are near their lows. PADD 2 and 4 crude imports from Canada recently dropped to ~3.145 million b/d, down from the 3.4 million b/d average.

Cushing inventory is hitting tank bottom just as Canada experiences production outages.

It's going to be a fun one to watch.

Meanwhile, PADD 3 crude oil inventories are ~48.6 million bbls away from reaching critical levels. Our estimate has always been the end of July, which corroborates with ~380 million bbls for US commercial crude storage.

Note: US commercial crude storage includes next week's estimate.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

To block out the noise from the negotiations, looking at longer expiries seems like a better bet.

If the premise is that crude oil has to break away from this inelastic level due to structural reasons, I figured longer-dated options would be more advantageous.

Short-term options are nice, but first of all, they're expensive because vol is high. And being expensive means theta can bleed out pretty fast. It’s fine for a quick momentum trade, though.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

Oh, right. Then the outcome is predictable.

[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

Netanyahu's office says any Iran deal will also limit missile production and end Tehran's support for regional proxies.

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

@EirikFPS sure I believe it. I own Z26 call option(Oil &amp; Gold) now. I wanna escape from headline shake...

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

@EirikFPS yes sir !

[Alex @AlexanderKim120]

really?

[Barak Ravid @BarakRavid]

Prime Minister's Office: "President Trump spoke this evening with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the memorandum of understanding being formulated with Iran as a framework for entering negotiations. Although Israel is not a party to the memorandum of understanding, the Prime Minister expressed his appreciation for President Trump's commitment that the final agreement resulting from the negotiations will include the removal of enriched nuclear material, the dismantling of enrichment infrastructure, limits on missile production, and an end to Iran's support for its terrorist proxies in the region"

[FinancialJuice @financialjuice]

Iran’s top joint military command: Strait of Hormuz closed to all vessel traffic

[FinancialJuice @financialjuice]

BoJ: Governor Ueda will submit a written statement at the June 15-16th meeting, but will not join the vote