Staying cautious and patient... On transportation stocks and tech... The energy crisis is deepening... Expect a wild ride ahead for oil prices... Risks and opportunities...
A warning from the planes, trains, and automobiles...
We'll cut right to the chase...
This morning, Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond published an important update to subscribers that we want to share...
As his regular readers know, Greg has been anticipating a "top" in the market based on his "time and price" technical analysis outlook. And several indicators show the market could be in for a big move...
In short, the Dow Jones Transportation Average – a set of 20 stocks including names like shipper FedEx (FDX), American Airlines (AAL), and Union Pacific (UNP) railroad – just experienced a steep drop indicative of something bigger, Greg says...
Transportation stocks (the "transports") were decimated yesterday... They fell more than 12% from the intraday high to the intraday low. April 21, 2026 was the highest closing price so far.
Here's the transports chart...
I warned that this index (the Dow Jones Transportation Average) was making a fifth-wave top and we should be cautious.
The broader market is next on deck to make similar moves.
It might not happen right away, Greg says, but he's tracking a similar technical pattern in tech stocks into early May.
Transportation and tech represent essentially everything about the economy these days. And both are showing a technical setup for a downward move ahead. "Patience is still key," Greg writes, "but get ready for some fireworks soon."
Today, we saw some sparks. The major U.S. stock indexes fell and were down by more than 1% intraday. Notably, some software stocks were among the day's biggest losers. Meanwhile, oil futures are up 3% in the past 24 hours and were as much as 6% higher earlier today.
Frankly, we've been waiting for it...
Over the past few weeks, Mr. Market has seemingly "moved on" from the worst-case scenarios about the war.
After about a 10% correction from the start of the war, the market has snapped back higher amid hopes that President Donald Trump will negotiate an end to the immediate conflict. But I (Corey McLaughlin) have been hesitant to get overly optimistic.
"Hold your horses," we said on April 1.
The "double-sided ceasefire" was announced two weeks ago, but if you include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, it has turned into a "double blockade" instead.
The White House and officials from Iran appear to be in a stare down. And even with the "ceasefire" extended, roughly 20% of global oil supply has remained out of the market for nearly two months now.
Global oil prices initially spiked by more than 70% at the outbreak of the war. They came down by about 25% before bouncing higher this week as deal deadlines came and went.
But these price spikes don't paint the full picture about the supply disruption that could be around the corner the longer Persian Gulf oil supply remains choked off, which could keep prices higher for even longer.
Pre-war Persian Gulf oil supplies have recently reached their destinations, and the world is now running at a 13 million barrels-per-day deficit of oil, the head of the International Energy Agency said today.
Still, the stock market hasn't yet cared about these risks all that much. We're reminded of a quote attributed to the economist John Maynard Keynes: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
We're not betting the farm against all-time highs in U.S. stocks, but we wouldn't be surprised to see another drawdown ahead.
We're starting to see mainstream consequences from the energy shock...
It's not just oil prices on the rise. Other commodities and oil products, like jet fuel, have soared even more. Jet fuel prices have gone up as much as 300% and are currently around 200% higher. Airlines are cutting back on more and more flights. From CBS News...
Germany's flag carrier airline Lufthansa said Wednesday that it was canceling 20,000 short-haul flights within Europe to save money, citing the dramatic spike in the price of jet fuel caused by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has dramatically constrained the flow of petroleum products through the Strait of Hormuz.
"In total, 20,000 short-haul flights will be removed from the schedule through October, equivalent to approximately 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel, the price of which has doubled since the outbreak of the Iran conflict," the airline said in a statement.
European airlines have typically gotten about 75% of their jet fuel from Middle East refineries. Nations are already rationing fuel. It's not hard to imagine the ripple effects throughout the global economy.
No wonder transportation stocks could be due for a downturn. We're seeing a sustained supply shock, which could lead to high(er) inflation across the U.S. and global economy... dragging on growth... and possibly a higher-interest-rate environment.
As we wrote two weeks ago, oil prices could move even higher. In a recent 39-page report from the Dallas Federal Reserve, it shared this projection...
We find that a cessation of oil exports from the Persian Gulf that only lasts one quarter would raise the average [West Texas Intermediate ("WTI")] price to $110 per barrel in April 2026. An outage lasting two quarters would cause the WTI price to peak at $132 per barrel in July 2026 and an outage lasting three quarters would cause the WTI price to peak at $167 in October of 2026.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, is trading around $105 per barrel, and WTI is around $96 per barrel, their highest levels in two weeks.
Expect a wild ride ahead...
We're ending with an important update from Stansberry Research Senior Analyst Brett Eversole. In his True Wealth Systems' Review of Market Extremes yesterday, Brett wrote...
Oil prices have been on a roller-coaster ride...
From the end of February through early April, the price of [WTI] crude oil jumped more than 70%. Then, it collapsed nearly 25% in the two weeks that followed.
Meanwhile, headlines offer an unclear picture of what's ahead for the war in Iran – with things looking up one day, and dismal the next. Any hint of a prolonged conflict (and the Strait of Hormuz staying closed) sends oil prices higher. Any hint of the end pushes prices lower.
I can't tell you whether tomorrow's news will be good or bad. But history does have something to say about this kind of volatility...
When prices swing erratically, they tend to keep swinging erratically. And that means we can expect more volatility in the oil markets in the months ahead.
These are extreme times, Brett wrote, and they're likely to continue over the next year, based on the rare, comparable history. As he continued...
A nearly 25% collapse in oil prices in two weeks is rare as well. We've only seen four similar instances since 1983. But gleaning what we can from these rare setups, they don't show a clear trend in one direction for oil. Instead, they tell us to expect more volatility. Take a look...
Over the long term, oil prices have been consistent. They've only increased 2.4% per year over the past four decades. But we know they can swing wildly in the short term.
That's what we can expect after the massive drop we just saw. Similar setups led to 16.1% losses in three months and 18.6% losses in six months... but a 26.5% gain over a year.
This suggests the wild swings for oil aren't over yet. We could see prices fall further from here. But prices could then rise dramatically from that eventual low.
In either case, don't expect this market to settle down anytime soon. Volatility begets volatility. And history shows that the hectic swings in oil will likely continue.
We don't have a crystal ball. But the path ahead for oil prices and the market in general looks like it could be a wild one. Now might be a great time to take stock of your portfolio, make sure you're not concentrated too heavily in one position, and trim a winner or two if you are.
At the same time, buying opportunities have emerged and will continue to do so.
The long-term bull case for certain U.S. energy companies – as we've shared over the past few weeks here and here – remains in place, and will likely strengthen. For instance, European airlines are looking to the U.S., in part, for fuel.
But with a major unresolved war, we urge you to remain cautious.
New 52-week highs (as of 4/22/26): ABB (ABBNY), Applied Materials (AMAT), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Amazon (AMZN), Arista Networks (ANET), Arm Holdings (ARM), Broadcom (AVGO), Cisco Systems (CSCO), DigitalOcean (DOCN), DXP Enterprises (DXPE), Emcor (EME), iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ex China Fund (EMXC), EnerSys (ENS), iShares MSCI South Korea Fund (EWY), Exelixis (EXEL), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), GE Vernova (GEV), Hubbell (HUBB), KraneShares Bosera MSCI China A 50 Connect Index Fund (KBA), Nucor (NUE), Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy Fund (PBW), ProShares Ultra Technology (ROM), USCF SummerHaven Dynamic Commodity Strategy No K-1 Fund (SDCI), Tenaris (TS), Twist Bioscience (TWST), Texas Instruments (TXN), and State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor Fund (XSD).
In the mailbag today, we address a complaint about our Stansberry Research Top 10 Open Recommendations list at the bottom of our daily Digest e-mail... Do you have a comment or question? As always, send your notes to feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"The info [in the Stansberry Research Top 10 Open Recommendations] is worse than useless. You know better than to rely on total returns when holding periods differ by a decade." – Subscriber Jerrod M.
Corey McLaughlin comment: We respectfully disagree with the "worse than useless" characterization.
First off, you raise a point about total versus annualized returns. But the idea of this list (as I think of it, since its creation predates my time as Digest editor) isn't to judge annualized returns.
Stansberry Research editors and analysts use various strategies and target various time horizons when making their recommendations. The idea of the Top 10 Open Recommendations list is to share a window into the different choices we offer, via the highest returning open recommendations from our team.
We want to encourage folks to explore which publications might be right for their goals or preferences. We also track total returns in our model portfolios, so the comparison makes sense and is simple.
If you're really interested, you can figure out which stocks on this Top 10 list have the best annualized returns fairly easily by using the start date of the recommendation.
For example, Microsoft (MSFT) recommendations from Doc in Retirement Millionaire and our founder Porter Stansberry in the flagship Stansberry's Investment Advisory take the top two spots for overall returns. These were opened in 2010 and 2012, respectively.
This shows you the power of compounding over the long term with a conservative approach. Those positions have also outperformed the S&P 500 Index, returning 19% and 21% annualized, respectively.
As for top annualized gains, editor John Engel's open recommendations of network technology business Ciena (CIEN) and data-center infrastructure provider Lumentum (LITE) in Stansberry Innovations Report are up around 88% and 45% annualized since 2022 and 2021, respectively.
That gives folks a taste of the different kind of strategy and more moderate risk taken on with the Innovations Report, which targets the next great technological revolutions. If you're interested in learning more about it, you can do so here.
Finally, you could say we're "giving away" positions that we have recommended, though we're not saying any or all the Top 10 Open Recommendations are currently "buys" either. Paying subscribers get those details, along with regular portfolio updates and any changes to initial buy-up-to prices. We find all that valuable.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Baltimore, Maryland
April 23, 2026
