Hoping for answers on Iran... Watch what the oil market does next... It's hard to trust this rally... The bull case for gold continues... An exciting new investing event coming next week...
Mr. Market wants to believe...
For the second straight day, the major U.S. stock indexes moved higher. And once again, it looked like a "relief rally" tied to hopes that the war in Iran really will end soon. President Donald Trump said late yesterday that it'll be over in two to three weeks.
The benchmark S&P 500 Index climbed nearly 1% today after gaining 2.9% yesterday. That was its best single-day performance since last spring, when investors were getting optimistic that the "worst" with Trump's tariff uncertainty was past...
Oil prices were also down more than 2%. And the difference between Brent crude, the international benchmark, and America's West Texas Intermediate ("WTI") is negligible again. Both are around $100 per barrel. That means the world is no longer paying a premium for international oil supplies versus America's domestic production.
This relief is based on the idea that the war is about to end... and that Middle Eastern oil and gas will flow again like nothing had happened. Hold your horses. I (Corey McLaughlin) find it difficult to be that optimistic.
Just yesterday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Operation Epic Fury could match Trump's initial framework of four to six weeks (it's on week five now)... Or it "could be any particular number" of weeks before it's over.
Meanwhile, the world is running at an estimated oil-supply deficit of 10 billion barrels per day. The last shipments of prewar Persian Gulf oil supply to Asia are arriving this week, and the same is set to happen in the U.S. by the middle of this month.
Tonight, Trump is set to deliver a live prime-time national address...
We don't know what he'll say.
But if Trump follows the lead of other presidents during times of war in the past, it could be a speech about what the thousands of U.S. troops near the Persian Gulf might be doing next... or what they're not doing. We'll see.
When it comes to the market, though, what matters most is energy prices.
We still don't know when or if the key Strait of Hormuz – a choke point for global energy supply, including 20% of the world's oil – is safe for commercial shipping traffic.
And, in the medium to longer term, no one knows who'll be in charge of postwar Iran... and how they'll use their country's geopolitical leverage (oil supply and access to the Strait of Hormuz).
The open-ended questions aren't trivial... They're fundamental to the global supply of oil and gas. And until they become clear, oil and other energy and commodity prices could swing higher again. And given how the economy and most stocks would suffer under higher energy prices, the market would remain volatile.
We're watching how the oil market will react to Trump's speech. It'll give us some clues about what's coming next.
In the short term, the market would likely celebrate a "deal" with Iran to essentially reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But any signs or messages of escalation in the war would likely spike oil prices and eat into stock prices.
Either way, as we've said this week, beware the bounce...
On Monday, we pointed you to Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond's latest weekly technical outlook. Greg warned against getting too bullish on U.S. stocks right now...
And yesterday, we shared a follow-up from Greg, attributing the scale of yesterday's bounce to it being the final trading day of the quarter. That's when big funds look to rebalance – further juicing what the market considered a "good news" day.
In another pair of updates for Ten Stock Trader subscribers today, Greg urged caution once again. "Time and price tell us to be cautious regarding stocks," Greg wrote, noting the pillars of his technical trading strategy.
I can't share all the details of Greg's analysis here in the Digest, but here are some of his points...
Greg showed that S&P 500 futures remain below their 200-day moving average (a longer-term indicator we've also discussed in the past two weeks). And he noted a short-term indicator trending lower and a possible price level for "resistance" for U.S. stocks.
Ten Stock Trader subscribers and Stansberry Alliance members can read his full analysis from today here and here, including why he expects volatility to continue over the next two months.
But here's what we want you to know right now. As Greg described it, the action right now is screaming "bull trap." As Greg wrote...
Simply put, I don't trust this rally... AT ALL.
But that doesn't mean he's telling his subscribers to go running for the hills. No, for them, this is an opportunity... He's preparing to recommend trades to profit as war-related volatility continues.
Meanwhile, gold is rebounding...
Some clues in the market suggest that investors and traders are betting against a protracted conflict in Iran. But gold's price is behaving like investors think there's more trouble ahead for the world (again).
Gold hit an all-time high around $5,400 an ounce in late January, then fell by around 20%. But over the past week, it's up about 7%, including more than 2% today. We remain bullish on gold.
Normally, I hesitate to chalk up general market direction to any one factor. But lately, it's hard to see anything but the war in Iran as the driving influence in the short term.
Gold can benefit from continued geopolitical uncertainty. But with gold – which we consider a must-own "chaos hedge" – it's not just about the war. It's something to own for what inevitably comes next, too.
The multifactor long-term bull case for gold that we've written about for years remains intact. That's the devaluation of fiat currency in various old and new ways. As editor Whitney Tilson and our Commodity Supercycles team wrote in a recent guest post in DailyWealth Trader...
For the past millennia, dating all the way back to ancient Greece, gold has been used to buy and sell, to pay soldiers, and to bankroll empires. And it's still the purest form of money today.
Over all those years, gold has been a currency in its own right. It has held its value against every fiat currency. And it doesn't depend on any government, so it can't default. That's why it acts as a hedge against inflation and crises.
Plus, pure gold doesn't tarnish or rust... so it doesn't degrade. And because it's expensive to mine, supply is limited.
On the other hand, hundreds of fiat currencies have either collapsed, been replaced, or lost significant purchasing power against gold over time. This has happened to every one of them without exception.
The U.S. dollar has lost roughly 96% to 97% of its purchasing power since coming off the gold standard in 1933.
This means that a $1 bill from 1933 would only be able to buy about $0.03 to $0.04 worth of goods and services in 2026. In other words, $1 in 1933 had the same "buying power" as roughly $25 today.
As we write today, and for the past month, the pace of headline inflation has only gone up... As a result, the market is no longer banking on long-sought interest-rate cuts until sometime in 2027.
And while rate cuts can also be inflation fuel (see most recently in 2020 to 2022), a cheaper cost of borrowing isn't the only thing that can lead to higher prices.
Oil prices are up more than 50% since the start of the war in Iran. And the longer the conflict goes on, the more consequences can get passed through the economy...
Foreign central banks – including in China, India, and Russia – are increasingly eager to reduce their reliance on U.S. dollars. They've ramped up gold purchases over the past several years, acting as consistent buyers. As Whitney and the Commodity Supercycles team also wrote...
The yield on U.S. Treasurys isn't high enough to entice central banks to buy them at the same levels as in the past. High U.S. debt levels could metastasize into inflation – which eats into real returns.
Plus, many countries – like Russia, China, and India – want to reduce their reliance on U.S. dollars. They're concerned about the U.S. weaponizing the dollar through sanctions. And they want to avoid America having any control over how they spend their money.
When you put it together, central banks around the world are responding by buying gold...
They've been net buyers of gold for 15 consecutive years, purchasing more than 1,000 metric tons ("MT") in 2022, 2023, and 2024. According to the World Gold Council ("WGC"), they purchased 863 MT last year. Take a look...
While buying slowed last year compared with the record-breaking peaks of 2022 through 2024, demand is still historically high.
Central banks now hold roughly 36,500 MT of gold, worth roughly $6 trillion. That's well above the nearly $4 trillion in U.S. Treasurys that central banks held at the end of December.
And signs point to more central-bank buying in the years ahead. And investors have been doing the same. Here's the truth over the millennia: Owners and holders of time-tested "hard assets" and inflation protection win.
It's not just gold, though...
Stocks, bought at reasonable prices, also provide inflation protection over the long run. Our editors and analysts have dozens of active recommendations across Stansberry Research... including in Commodity Supercycles.
Last but not least today...
We've got an exciting new event coming up next week that we want you to know about.
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And next Tuesday, you'll have the chance to hear about one truly unique strategy to do just that. The system behind it has flagged 442 winning trades since 2017 and could have turned $10,000 in each trade into nearly $620,000.
This strategy has virtually nothing to do with war in Iran, or any market indicator or trend you've likely heard about. And that's the point...
The man behind this hedge-fund-caliber trading strategy uses a system to look at stocks and businesses in a way that few, if any other analysts, are doing. It stems from his years of expertise working at hedge funds and in the private sector as a tech insider.
Plus, the volatility we've seen so far in 2026 only provides another tailwind for this strategy, as it's designed to deliver triple-digit gains in just 90 trading days... and then to do it again, and again.
We'll have more to say about this strategy in the coming days, including in a special Masters Series this weekend. But if you're already interested, you can register for Tuesday's event right now here.
After signing up, you'll also get more details, including stories about one of the world's most envied hedge funds... what it really takes to find an edge on Wall Street... and a closer look at the man behind this strategy.
Then, just for tuning in next week, you'll hear much more about this opportunity, plus two free stock recommendations... one to buy and one to avoid. Sign up here now to make sure you don't miss anything.
Our Stansberry Alliance members already have access to this research, but feel free to tune in to this special event as well on Tuesday.
New 52-week highs (as of 3/31/26): Alpha Architect 1-3 Month Box Fund (BOXX), Pfizer (PFE), and Sempra (SRE).
In today's mailbag, feedback on more research from Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Thanks for the quarterly update, Greg! Great job explaining your approach. Looking forward to your upcoming trades. Keep up the great work. I really enjoy your material. (and profit from it!) :-)" – Subscriber David C.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Baltimore, Maryland
April 1, 2026
