THE RUNDOWN
WAR › Oil had one of its most violent days of the year. WTI surged 12% to $111.54 after Trump told the nation the Iran war would last “two to three weeks” more and threatened to bring Tehran “back to the stone ages.” At the lows, the Dow was down 668 points and the S&P was off 1.5%. Then Iran’s state media reported that Tehran is working with Oman on a protocol to monitor ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Markets reversed sharply, with all three major indexes finishing roughly flat. Meanwhile, several hundred Special Operations forces, including Army Rangers and Navy SEALs, have arrived in the Middle East as Trump weighs ground operations.
MARKETS › Q1 is in the books, and it wasn’t pretty. The S&P 500 finished the quarter down roughly 4.6%, its worst performance in four years. But the final week told a different story. The S&P gained 3.4%, the Nasdaq popped 4.4%, and the Dow added 3%, the strongest weekly showing since November 2024. The tension between those two numbers is the entire market right now: ugly macro, but stocks that refuse to stay down for long. Warren Buffett was asked this week if stocks look cheaper after the selloff. His answer was one word: “No.”