Menta, reversal, volatility = opportunity to trade the market.
Anyway - there is plenty of speculation how the Middle East unrest effects the market:
'One can speculate a bit of how all of this will influence the financial markets. A good example is provided by the energy crisis of 1979/80, when the Islamic revolution in Iran broke out and the Soviet Union used the opportunity to invade Afghanistan under the pretext of 'helping' it.
What we can conclude from this historical event is that markets will do exactly what one would expect them to do - i.e. stocks and 'risk assets' would be under pressure, while crude oil and precious metals prices would rise strongly - for as long as the crisis persists.
All these items are bound to give back their crisis induced gains - i.e. the premia they have acquired in the market's attempt to discount a highly uncertain future - once the crisis abates. Of course, in 1979/80 there was also Paul Volcker raising the Fed's administered interest rates sharply, so there is a marked difference between today and that period in that regard.
Still, one can nevertheless probably generalize about the effects of such a crisis on market prices in the manner we have done above. It is the intensity and duration of the crisis that will ultimately define the market's reaction.
The lately highly unusual sight of down days in the stock market may become a bit more familiar once again.'
