IRAN WAR Day 13` ; VIX @26.06

Good morning disciplined operators.

The market woke up like it checked its phone at 3:12 a.m. and saw crude flirting with triple digits, the 10-year back above 4.2%, and the U.S. basically saying, “Yeah… about escorting those tankers through Hormuz… not yet.” 

So here we are again: stocks down, oil up, yields up, and traders acting like they just realized geopolitical risk is not a Netflix genre. 

The vibe this morning is simple: inflation fear is back in the group chat, growth is catching side-eye, and the market is repricing the fantasy that rate cuts were going to arrive wearing a superhero cape.
 
Welcome to Thursday. Same circus. More expensive gasoline.

Dow futures fell roughly 400 points premarket, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures also under pressure as oil surged on fresh shipping attacks and continued disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. Brent briefly touched $100 and WTI pushed into the low $90s after Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. Navy is not yet ready to escort tankers through the strait. Reuters also reported that the latest wave of attacks hit more foreign vessels overnight, reinforcing the market’s fear that this is not a one-headline problem but an ongoing supply-chain and inflation problem.

The oil spike is messing with rate-cut dreams. Goldman Sachs pushed back its Fed cut call from June to September, and markets are now pricing only about a 41% chance of a September cut. Translation: weak growth data alone is no longer enough to make the market bullish if crude keeps punching inflation in the face.

The latest economic data did not exactly scream recession, but it did keep the stagflation debate alive. Initial jobless claims came in at 213,000, a touch below expectations, while continuing claims fell to about 1.85 million. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed sharply to $54.5 billion, and January housing starts rose to roughly 1.49 million annualized, while permits fell to about 1.38 million. In plain English: labor is not breaking, trade improved, and builders are still swinging hammers, but none of that matters much when oil is playing arsonist with inflation expectations.

On the AI side, memory remains the quiet monster. Executives from across the ecosystem keep signaling that AI demand has changed the old memory boom-bust cycle, with hyperscalers locking in longer-term supply and HBM staying tight. That matters because even while the broad tape gets punched by macro, the AI infrastructure stack still has pockets of structural strength.

“You don’t need to be right.
You need to make money.” 

The big macro prints already hit at 8:30 a.m. ET:

• Initial jobless claims: 213,000

• U.S. trade deficit: $54.5 billion

• Housing starts: 1.49 million annualized

• Building permits: 1.38 million annualized
  
  

Fed watch:

• Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman is on today’s calendar. That means every word on bank regulation, inflation, credit conditions, and supervision can move financials and the rates complex.
  
  

Market watch into the close:

• Adobe is the headline earnings name on deck today, which gives software and AI-adjacent sentiment another live grenade to juggle.

The International Energy Agency agreed to release 400 million barrels from reserves, while the U.S. plans to release 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Nice headline. Weak sedative. Reuters noted that the market is still skeptical because logistics and flow rates matter more than chest-thumping press releases when the shipping lane itself is jammed. One Reuters market note said the 400 million barrel release only covers about 2 to 4 weeks of global demand. That is not a fire extinguisher. That is a wet napkin at a refinery fire.

Meanwhile, the White House is rebuilding tariff pressure after the Supreme Court struck down many prior tariffs. The administration has launched new Section 301 investigations targeting multiple trade partners, which means the trade-war sequel is in production and nobody asked for tickets.

And yes, the AI layoff drum keeps beating. Atlassian said it is cutting 10% of its workforce to help self-fund more AI investment. That is not a labor-market footnote. That is the new corporate playbook: cut humans, buy compute, call it productivity.

DOW: -0.96%
Risk-off tone. Old economy is getting hit with higher energy costs and tighter financial conditions.

S&P 500: -0.77%
Broad pressure, but not full liquidation. This is fear with sector rotation, not total surrender.

NASDAQ: -0.76%
Tech is red, but holding up better than the Dow because AI still has true believers and memory names have real supply tightness behind them.

RUSSELL 2000: -1.59%
Small caps are getting body-slammed. Higher oil plus higher yields is basically a two-piece combo meal of pain for smaller balance sheets.

VIX: 26.06
That is not a sleepy market. That is a market charging admission for chaos.

BITCOIN: $70,530
Still hanging in there, but not exactly acting like digital Superman this morning.

GOLD: $5,185
Safety bid is alive. When the world gets weird, shiny rocks suddenly look like Rhodes Scholars.

SILVER: $87.14
Risk and inflation hedge crowd still awake and caffeinated.

WTI CRUDE: $92.84
This is the problem child. Every uptick here tightens the market’s financial conditions without the Fed even lifting a finger.

BRENT CRUDE: $95.845
Global inflation thermometer. If Brent keeps pressing higher, the market starts repricing everything with a pulse.

10-YEAR YIELD: 4.227%
Rates are not helping stocks. Duration is getting smacked with the “higher-for-longer-but-now-with-war-premium” bat.

DOLLAR INDEX: 99.386
Dollar firm enough to keep pressure on multinational risk assets without going full wrecking ball.

Bumble +21%
A dating app ripping in this tape is hilarious. Apparently love may be dead, but EBITDA guidance is alive.

Firefly Aerospace +12%
Successful launch, successful squeeze. Space stocks love one thing: proof the rocket did not become a very expensive firework.

Petco +12%
Better guidance did the trick. Even in a nervous tape, Wall Street will still reward a dog-food company that remembers how to make money.

Hims & Hers +5%
Lilly’s warning on impurity issues in a compounded rival product lit a fresh bid under HIMS. Translation: regulatory chaos is sometimes someone else’s marketing budget.

Dick’s Sporting Goods +3%
Big beat. Retailers who execute still get paid, even when the macro crowd is busy hyperventilating.

Atlassian +2%
Nothing says “Wall Street efficiency” like firing 10% of the workforce and calling it AI strategy.

Blackstone -2%
Private credit stress is no longer hiding in the basement.

Apollo -2%
Same movie. Same expensive suit. Same redemption anxiety.

Blue Owl -3.1%
Withdrawal caps are not exactly the kind of flex that inspires confidence.

Dollar General -5%
Weak guide. The low-end consumer is still not throwing confetti.

UiPath -8%
Guidance landed with all the grace of a piano off a balcony.

Netskope -17%
Weak outlook, bigger loss guide, and the market responded by throwing it out the premarket window.

| Alfred Rappaport

Strengths

The market still has one major strength: real structural demand in the AI buildout. Memory is the poster child. Hyperscalers are signing longer-term supply deals, HBM remains constrained, and executives across the stack are openly saying the old boom-bust memory cycle may be structurally changing. That means while the index tape looks sick, there are still islands of real strength where demand is not theoretical, not hype-based, and not waiting on a Fed pivot to survive. The labor market also remains more stable than panic headlines suggest, with claims still low by historical standards. In other words, this market still has muscle. It just pulled a hamstring jogging through a minefield of crude oil headlines.

Weaknesses

The obvious weakness is energy-driven inflation risk colliding with already-tight financial conditions. Oil up, yields up, and rate cuts pushed out is a toxic cocktail for broad equities. Small caps are getting hit hardest because they do not have the margins, moat, or magical AI halo to shrug off higher financing costs and input prices. Add private credit wobbling under withdrawal caps and you have a market where hidden fragility is starting to surface. The broad tape is not just reacting to headlines. It is reacting to the realization that the cheap-money fantasy is not walking back through that door today.

Opportunities

The opportunity is rotation, not random button-mashing. When crude spikes and yields back up, traders should stop pretending every sector is equal. Energy, selective commodity exposure, and pockets of AI infrastructure strength are where relative strength can still show up. Volatility also creates premium moves in options for traders who wait for confirmation instead of chasing the first candle like caffeinated raccoons. This is a trader’s tape, not a tourist’s tape. The edge is in identifying who benefits from the shock, who gets suffocated by it, and where the market has already overreacted before the next catalyst. With PCE still ahead later this month and the Fed meeting next week, this tape can hand out clean directional swings to operators who respect timing and position size.

Threats

The threat is a full stagflation narrative taking root. If shipping disruption persists, oil remains elevated, and Treasury yields keep climbing, the market loses both valuation support and policy hope at the same time. That is when dips stop being cute and start becoming trapdoors. Add in fresh tariff probes, airline fare pressure from jet fuel costs, and mounting AI-related labor dislocation, and you have the kind of cross-current that can break weak hands fast. The market can survive bad news. What it hates is bad news that keeps multiplying. Right now, the threat is not one headline. It is contagion between oil, inflation, rates, and confidence.

When crude spikes and the 10-year rises with it, the smarter move before PCE is not to blindly short everything. It is to watch for relative weakness in rate-sensitive growth and relative strength in energy, commodities, and inflation beneficiaries. The tactic is simple: let the first emotional move happen, then stalk the second move after the market decides whether higher oil is a one-day scare or a real inflation repricing.

Here is the stat that matters: Reuters reported the IEA’s massive 400 million barrel reserve release may only amount to about 2 to 4 weeks of global demand cover, and another market estimate noted historical release rates are modest relative to the roughly 20 million barrels a day that normally move through Hormuz-linked flows. That tells you why the market is not treating the reserve release like a cure. It is treating it like aspirin during surgery.

TFT takeaway:
Before PCE, watch whether oil stays bid and whether yields refuse to back off. If both hold, the market is telling you inflation fear is still in charge. That favors tactical longs in strength and tactical shorts in weak, rate-sensitive names. Do not predict. Prepare. Then execute the turn.


“Know what you own, and know why you own it.” — Peter Lynch

March 12 Market Memory

March 12, 1986: Oracle went public. Oracle’s investor relations page says its IPO offered 2.1 million shares at $15. Today Oracle’s market value is roughly $574 billion, and its stock trades around $163. That is your reminder that giant wealth machines usually do not ring a bell and announce themselves as “obvious.” They start as a boring-looking business tied to a powerful trend, then compound for decades while most people stay distracted by whatever shiny nonsense is trending this week.

Surprising stat:
At today’s price, Oracle trades at more than 10 times its IPO price before even getting into the effect of decades of compounding, splits, reinvestment, and market-cap expansion. The bigger lesson is not the multiple. The lesson is duration. Wall Street pays adults who can stay married to real trends longer than the crowd can stay emotionally stable.

TFT takeaway:
Do not just hunt moves. Learn to identify engines.

Here is the beautiful insanity that only the stock market can offer: a stock can move 10% to 15% in a few trading days, but a well-timed swing call can move 80%, 120%, even 200% because you are controlling 100 shares with a fraction of the capital.

Historical setup example — modeled from a real stock move:
NVIDIA closed around $76.20 on April 19, 2024 and then ripped to about $87.73 by April 26, 2024, a one-week move of roughly 15.1%. That rebound followed a sharp flush in a still-dominant AI leader and turned into a violent snapback.

Illustrative swing trade math:

• Trade size: $10,000

• Underlying: NVDA

• Duration: multi-day swing

• Setup: buy near-the-money calls after confirmation of the bounce

• Example modeled contract cost: about $5.00 per contract or $500 each

• Contracts bought with $10,000: 20 contracts

• If the option premium expands from $5.00 to $11.00 during the stock’s rebound, the value becomes $22,000

• Profit: $12,000

• Return on trade: +120%
  
  

Why this matters:
The stock moved about 15%. The option, in this modeled swing, moved about 120%. That is the leverage gap. That is why skill matters. That is why timing matters. And that is why amateurs get wrecked when they treat options like lottery tickets instead of precision tools.

TFT lesson:
A clean bounce in a leader can produce stock-like logic with business-like leverage. But only when the catalyst, trend, and timing align. Otherwise you are just lighting premium on fire and calling it education.

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The Fed is doing whatever the Fed does.

AI is on its 7th hype cycle.

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