April Fool’s Day is a Day of Fear at The Wealth Training Academy. There’s a certain someone in our office, who will remain nameless here, who just loves a good prank. This person generally loves to hide around corners and on the other side of doors as we open them and scare the life out of us as he or she (no I’m not even giving that away) sneaks up from behind. So, in not knowing what this year’s prank is going to be, we find ourselves peeking around corners apprehensively all day. If I owned a football helmet and pads or some other kind of PPE (personal protective equipment) I would wear it to work on April 1st. This year, as it turned out, the prank threat never materialized and the perpetrator instead gifted Easter chocolates and Jellybeans, which of course, still had the desired effect of surprising us! Bravo!!
Unfortunately, this April Fool’s Day, the joke is on us market participants. Leading up to his speech to the nation about Iran on Wednesday night, President Trump had intimated the conflict was winding down and America’s military objectives had been largely met. Then at noon on Tuesday a report dropped that Iran President Pezeshkian was willing to stop the war as well, which sent the market screaming higher. By the time Trump took to the microphone Wednesday evening, the Nasdaq had ripped 5% higher and expectations were certainly set that Trump’s speech was going to guide the American public through the woods along the pathway to winding the conflict down. I’ve already read several interpretations of what he said, but the general takeaway judging by the market’s reaction earlier this morning was that nothing changed. We went from a reported withdrawal to threats of destroying the Iranians’ power grid to oil now up 13% as of the writing of this article.1
This seems familiar somehow … oh wait I got it! We were doing the exact same thing at the same exact moment last year!! Watching and shaking our head at the market volatility. April 1, 2025, was Liberation Day when Trump announced the tariffs. On April 1, 2026 we get a speech where market participants were certainly caught offsides. Polymarket had the odds of a ceasefire between the US and Iran to down to 24%, a huge drop from 54% higher in the last 24 hours. Curiously, for the first time in a long time, WTI Crude (West Texas Intermediate) is $3 higher than Brent Crude oil prices.
Tariffs … Oil prices spiking … what do they have in common? Both are inflation-producing. What does the market fear the most? Inflation. Why? The scar tissue is very deep and the wound still hurts from the run-up in consumer prices for the last 5 years. The US economy is 70% the American consumer. As the US Consumer goes, so goes the US stock market. Think about the close attention we all pay to unemployment numbers and to holiday retail sales and whether or not we get a Santa Claus rally in December. They are all biomarkers we monitor on the health of our primary patient, the American consumer.
The Dow Jones had lost 600 points this morning and as I write this, in a blink, it’s nearly recovered all its losses.2 Things are happening fast with AI algorithmic trading. Whew … would someone else like to take a try at crafting a narrative out of this? CNBC can’t even keep up as the rectangle buttons on the top banner of their website that show the performance of each index are now mostly positive and green as the headline still reads: “Stocks tumble as oil soars; Dow loses more than 400 points.” Ha!
There are some guiding principles to be sifted from the shifting sands as the winds of each headline buffet us this way and that. And it’s this: the abiding principle to guide very short-term investment decisions should be to filter all news through the prism of how whatever news is presented affects inflation. Full stop. Thanks for coming to our presentation. Please fill out our comment cards and sign up for a 30-minute phone call. The truth of the matter is if you have a big expense coming up within the next year that money shouldn’t be invested in the market anyway for you to be concerned about short-term price movements. If you do have money that needs to be sidelined to meet your needs this year, please call us.
With your funds, we make long-term investment decisions. We’re not trying to scrape the bottom of the market and time everything just perfectly. No one can predict the future. Timing the market involves educated guesses only. In certain strategies we trade tactically, meaning we’re trading to the global and industry trends, but it doesn’t mean we’re trying to swing trade anything. This volatility we’re experiencing is another reminder that engaging in such an activity, particularly with AI and algorithmic trading in the hands of the huge institutions and hedge funds that both go long and short on the market, is setting yourself up for failure. The era of trying to outtrade the really big boys is over. Going long for long enough still is the recipe for success (if, of course, you have the risk tolerance, time horizon and goals for such).
I’ll wrap this up here, because the minute I craft my next sentence, the stock market will have changed wildly again. So, I’ll just take a breath and step back and say this: don’t let current events rob you of the joy of your success or threaten your account values by making emotional investment decisions. As Paul Harvey once said3, “Stay in your seat come times of trouble. It’s only people who jump off the roller coaster that get hurt.” Remember, if you listen to us, we’ll change your financial world …
Sincerely,
Scott Wright
Portfolio Manager
The Wealth Training Academy
(Marketing Disclaimer: Past performance is never a guarantee of future results. We offer a lot of services. Our planning, tax, and insurance strategies are designed to improve financial outcomes when implemented as recommended. We’re confident in these strategies, but results will vary based on individual circumstances. Investment results cannot be guaranteed. Unless otherwise indicated, no third party individuals mentioned in this article are clients of our firm, nor have they been compensated for appearing. This article is for educational purposes only – we do not recommend anyone buy or sell any security discussed here. Instead, we recommend readers call our office for personal advice about your circumstances! ~The Compliance Department.)
Sources:
Oil prices soar 13% as Trump’s Iran war speech stokes fears of escalation
