Iran Broke the Market's Brain This Week — Here's What the Data Actually Says
From a $141 Brent spike to a SpaceX IPO the size of a small country, social sentiment had a lot to process
Ticker Ratings
| Ticker | Rating | Entry Price | Current | $ Gain | % Gain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPY SPDR S&P 500 ETF TRUST | hold | $655.83 | — | — | — |
| QQQ INVESCO QQQ TRUST, SERIES 1 | hold | $584.80 | — | — | — |
| TSLA Tesla, Inc. | hold | $361.26 | — | — | — |
| AMD ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES INC | hold | $217.14 | — | — | — |
| DAL DELTA AIR LINES, INC. | hold | $66.71 | — | — | — |
| JPM JPMORGAN CHASE & CO | buy | $294.85 | — | — | — |
| GS GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC | buy | $863.95 | — | — | — |
Let's start with the elephant — or rather, the fighter jet — in the room. Brent crude hit $141/barrel, a US F-15E got shot down over Iran, SEAL Team Six ran a Hollywood rescue mission, and the S&P 500 basically went, cool story bro. The Traveling Trader flagged it perfectly: crude up 12% on Friday while equities flatlined, suggesting markets are getting dangerously numb to the Iran war narrative. That desensitization has a shelf life, and it's probably short.
Meanwhile, Andrei Jikh dropped the scariest chart of the week: credit spreads blowing out while stocks stay elevated — a pattern that has preceded bear markets three out of three times in the past 20 years. The bond market is not vibing with the equity market right now, and historically the bond market wins that argument. TheChartGuys added texture: $SPY and $QQQ are below both the 50 and 200-day moving averages, last week's rally reads like a short squeeze, and key resistance at SPY 662.76 and QQQ 591.33 still needs to be reclaimed before bulls celebrate anything.
On the macro bright side, the March jobs report printed 178,000 — crushing the 65,000 estimate — with unemployment dipping to 4.3% and wage growth cooling to 3.5% YoY. Jeremiah Babe called it fabricated. CNBC called it the strongest print since December. You decide who's more fun at parties. And buried under all the geopolitical chaos: Bloomberg floated a SpaceX IPO potentially raising $75 billion, which would be the largest in history. Elon apparently identified capital as SpaceX's limiting factor. Relatable, honestly.
Easter candy sales are down 5-9%, cocoa prices are still brutalizing chocolate margins, and somehow that feels like a perfect metaphor for this entire week.