<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Truth About Gas Prices
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> With no progress tamping down U.S.-Iran tensions, U.S. oil futures are up over 3.5% today to $103.57 &mdash; the highest since April 13.
Gasoline prices are following in tandem: The national average this morning is $4.23 a gallon, the highest since July 2022.
And it&rsquo;s tracking toward $4.30 soon according to GasBuddy&rsquo;s chief analyst Patrick De Haan. Big jumps are coming by midday today, he says, in the four states surrounding Lake Michigan thanks to ongoing production glitches at BP&rsquo;s big refinery in northwest Indiana.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> "If the U.S. is energy independent, why are prices higher HERE in the wake of the Iran war?" is a common question these days.
Yesterday on the Paradigm Press mobile app, our hedge fund veteran and jack-of-all-trades analyst Zach Scheidt served up an answer.
&ldquo;Even though the U.S. produces plenty of its own oil, crude is a GLOBAL market. And since prices are higher overseas, there is an incentive for U.S. producers to ship oil and collect higher prices from international markets.
&ldquo;More GLOBAL demand drives LOCAL prices higher.&rdquo;
With that in mind, Zach shared a chart showing the number of empty supertankers headed to the United States to load up and then head back overseas.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/KEFGiZQ3bWguhy5YcxLEm/3bd247c75deb93fd335601df25b29c99/5Bullets_Chart_oil_042926.png" alt="Empty Super Tankers" width="540px" />
Or as petroleum engineer Christine Guerrero puts it on her X account, &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t pay less for a T-shirt at Walmart just because you live in a different neighborhood. More reality checks coming as U.S. exports soar.&rdquo;
Much of that traffic will be headed to Europe &mdash; where most of the refineries are set up to handle the &ldquo;light, sweet&rdquo; crude that comes from America&rsquo;s shale patch. (Most American refineries were set up decades ago to handle the thick, sulfurous stuff that comes from Canada&rsquo;s tar sands and from Venezuela.)
We&rsquo;ll give the final word to GasBuddy&rsquo;s De Haan before we move on: Policymakers have a &ldquo;narrow window,&rdquo; he says, in which to bring about a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
&ldquo;If that doesn&rsquo;t happen soon, Americans will start changing their summer travel plans &mdash; and they will NOT forget why when they head to the polls in November.&rdquo;
[Update: As we get closer to virtual &ldquo;press&rdquo; time WTI futures are now up 6.75% to $106.69. That&rsquo;s the highest since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire took effect on April 8.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Markets Today: Suspended Animation
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The stock market is in a state of suspended animation &mdash; awaiting a decision from the Federal Reserve and earnings numbers from the biggest AI &ldquo;hyperscalers.&rdquo;
After the closing bell today, Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft all report their numbers &mdash; the first time it&rsquo;s happened in one fell swoop, if memory serves.
All four have been rallying in recent weeks &ldquo;despite still spending at historic levels,&rdquo; says Davis Wilson of our sister e-letter The Million Mission. &ldquo;This week, we find out if spending is still accelerating &mdash; or quietly slowing.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But before those earnings figures drop, the Federal Reserve makes its next call on interest rates &mdash; presumably the final call under the chairmanship of Jerome Powell.
As usual, the decision is not in doubt: The Fed will hold its benchmark fed funds rate steady at 3.75%, where it&rsquo;s stood for over four months.
We await Powell&rsquo;s press conference &mdash; but it&rsquo;s likely he&rsquo;ll say that with the official inflation rate rising since the start of the Iran war, any rate cuts now would be like pouring gasoline on a fire.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1Ce2HMlS7FpaoGAwrmu8Nn/f27408993980f6ef3f644b830163374c/5Bullets_Chart_Inflation_042926.png" alt="War is inflationary" width="540px" />
The April figures don&rsquo;t come out for a couple more weeks, but is there any doubt about the trajectory?
&ldquo;Inflation is well above the Fed&rsquo;s 2.0% target and is moving in the wrong direction,&rdquo; says Paradigm macro maven Jim Rickards.
&ldquo;Even 3.3% inflation will cut the purchasing power of $1.00 in half in just 21 years and half again in another 21 years.
&ldquo;In a typical working career of 42 years from age 23 to age 65, the dollar will lose 75% of its purchasing power with 3.3% inflation.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing benign about that rate and the Fed knows it. Lowering the inflation rate by keeping interest rates unchanged will be the sole focus of this FOMC meeting.&rdquo;
From here, who knows? Of course, Donald Trump wants lower rates &mdash; really, does any real-estate guy not want lower rates? &mdash; and he&rsquo;s made that stance clear to Kevin Warsh, his nominee to replace Powell.
Still, even if Warsh agrees with the president and pushes for lower rates, he has to persuade a majority of the 12-member Fed Open Market Committee to go along.
The next meeting with Warsh in charge is set for June 16&ndash;17.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Ahead of the Fed announcement and the big earnings reports, the S&amp;P 500 is adding slightly to yesterday&rsquo;s losses &mdash; down less than a quarter percent at 7,127. The Nasdaq is in similar shape; the Dow&rsquo;s losses are a bit steeper.
We&rsquo;re watching rising bond yields closely today: The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is bumping up against 4.4% for the first time all month. Last month, every time the 10-year touched this level there was some sort of conciliatory announcement from the White House aimed at lowering the temperature of the war &mdash; and lowering rates. Something to watch for especially with the oil spike today&hellip;
Precious metals are losing more ground, gold at $4,559 and silver at $71.56. Crypto can&rsquo;t get any traction &mdash; Bitcoin just over $76,000 and Ethereum at $2,276.
The big economic number of the day is durable goods orders &mdash; up 0.8% in March. This number is often skewed by orders for aircraft and military hardware, which are notoriously volatile month to month. Take those out and you get a category called &ldquo;core capital goods.&rdquo; This number jumped 3.3% in March.
That&rsquo;s a very healthy number &mdash; too healthy. It suggests businesses are rushing to place orders ahead of expected price increases.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Power Grid Emergency
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The news got lost in the shuffle of war headlines last month &mdash; but here&rsquo;s a development with America&rsquo;s creaky power grid we shouldn&rsquo;t overlook.
&ldquo;The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will invest $1.9 billion to accelerate improvements to the nation&rsquo;s electrical grid,&rdquo; says Paradigm natural-resources pro Matt Badiali.
&ldquo;Of course, this program has a stupid acronym: &lsquo;Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades&rsquo; (SPARK).
&ldquo;What&rsquo;s important about SPARK is that it will accelerate the purchase of electrical components made in the U.S. from metals like aluminum, steel and copper. The DOE will announce the recipients of the money at the end of May this year.
&ldquo;To add to the urgency, the White House announced an executive order that marks America&rsquo;s electric infrastructure as critical to national defense under the Defense Production Act.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ve been sounding the alarm about the grid in these pages for nearly four years. Rolling blackouts during hot weather were becoming a very real risk in mid-2022: Too many coal and nuclear plants were being retired, and the wind and solar coming online weren&rsquo;t nearly enough to replace it.
Starting in early 2024, we also led the charge in warning about the added stress that AI data centers would put on the grid &mdash; long before the mainstream caught on.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But fixing the problem doesn&rsquo;t come cheap. 
The American Society of Civil Engineers says there&rsquo;s a $578 billion gap between planned spending on maintenance and what needs to be spent for upgrades.
&ldquo;There are only so many bandages you can put on a failing system,&rdquo; says Matt. &ldquo;At some point you need to tear the system down and actually fix it. That&rsquo;s why SPARK and the new executive order are so critical.&rdquo;
Key investing angle: &ldquo;The U.S. cannot make these grid upgrades without buying metals. Lots of them.&rdquo;
That will undoubtedly benefit the copper miners in Matt&rsquo;s Real Wealth Insider portfolio.
It will also benefit the aluminum giant Alcoa (AA). Matt talked up Alcoa in a special Martin Luther King Day edition of 5 Bullets last January. It&rsquo;s up a modest 4% since then, and the thesis is only getting stronger.
&ldquo;While electric motors must have copper,&rdquo; says Matt, &ldquo;transmission lines are primarily made of aluminum&hellip; and they are old.&rdquo;
The design of the power lines we use today dates back to the 1970s. Many power-industry experts believe that just replacing the old lines and conductors with new technology could double the grid&rsquo;s capacity.
Another tailwind: &ldquo;According to the Aluminum Association,&rdquo; Matt tells us, &ldquo;the U.S. needs about five new 750,000-metric‑ton primary smelters to &lsquo;fully meet current metal needs&rsquo;. That is roughly 3.75 million tons of additional annual capacity. The U.S. currently consumes about 5 million metric tons per year, across all sectors. That includes construction and packaging.&rdquo;
And that doesn&rsquo;t even get to the aluminum shortage resulting from the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Bottom line: Aluminum is lucrative &mdash; and Matt says Alcoa is the only good way to play it at this time.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> A grim chuckle courtesy of Bloomberg&rsquo;s commodity reporter&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5Q0KEihv18OqdebFlkfnTq/3a030de9b82f068f2394e04cc461314f/FMF-Issue-042926-4.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Audiophile Mailbag
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Let&rsquo;s keep it light: Our musings <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/is-ai-suddenly-doomed">in yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a> about the revival of vinyl record sales prompted the following email from one of our longtimers&hellip;
&ldquo;Dave, Dave, Dave&hellip; Just when the readership was getting calmed down, you go and call us &lsquo;oldsters.&rsquo; LMAO! I know it was just meant in jest, but with all the riled-up readers lately, well, who knows how that will be taken?
&ldquo;But (the inevitable) let&rsquo;s talk about that costly endeavor of serious audiophiles. Yes, I&rsquo;m an &lsquo;oldster&rsquo; and proud of it! I also have an &lsquo;awesome&rsquo; (ah, you Gen-Xers) sound system. Carver 150-watt amp, SoundTech speakers and the turntable? A Bang and Olufsen Beogram horizontal turntable! (google it!).
&ldquo;Hope your editors keep churning out winners, as these new collector vinyls are running upwards of $120 nowadays. Jim, BTW, is doing a great job of that!
&ldquo;Then the wife (she&rsquo;s Chinese) needed me to add onto the sound system for her and her karaoke friends. We added a mixer board, mikes, a 12&rdquo;/CD silver-platter karaoke player. When we were younger our place was the place to party at! Yes, honey, do you need anything else? 😊
&ldquo;If that wasn&rsquo;t loud enough to wake the neighbors, my son recently handed me down his Logitech 500-watt, six-way surround sound system, because it was &lsquo;too much&rsquo; for his place. So now Dad has F-15&rsquo;s (think Top Gun) landing and taking off in my living room! He&rsquo;s a Gen-Xer too and I taught him well!
&ldquo;So Dave, go enjoy a cold microbrew (think I steered you away from light beer in &rsquo;23), you ELP-loving guy and crank on Tarkus on your budget system! I&rsquo;m going to enjoy a full-volume version, err, as soon as the wife goes shopping! LOL!
&ldquo;Still in your corner after all these years!&rdquo;
Dave responds: Hats off. That&rsquo;s hardcore.
Different strokes for different folks. An NAD CD player, an iFi headphone amplifier and a pair of Grado SR325 cans are all I need. Even today the whole shebang sets you back about $1,000.
Yeah and I&rsquo;m still not above a Miller Lite now and then. Can&rsquo;t be a Milwaukee Brewers fan otherwise, right?

FMF-Issue-042926-Featured

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Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets is a daily e-letter covering the economy and the markets, reaching 120,000 paying subscribers of the renowned financial publishing firm Paradigm Press.

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

The Truth About Gas Prices

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Is AI Suddenly Doomed?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Suddenly, AI stocks are falling out of bed.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6JO1tK8OdIrcpHF3PngBM6/3fd8d9c0ca275b97398f62cec912eb90/FMF-Issue-042826-1.jpg" alt="OpenAi" width="450px" />
Early this morning, The Wall Street Journal posted a story that begins thus: &ldquo;OpenAI recently missed its own targets for new users and revenue, stumbles that have raised concern among some company leaders about whether it will be able to support its massive spending on data centers.&rdquo;
The story cites the usual &ldquo;people familiar with the matter&rdquo; as saying OpenAI&rsquo;s board is questioning CEO Sam Altman&rsquo;s efforts &ldquo;to secure even more computing power despite the business slowdown.&rdquo; In addition, CFO Sarah Friar is supposedly worried &ldquo;the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn&rsquo;t grow fast enough.&rdquo;
Because OpenAI is not (yet) a public company, there aren&rsquo;t any numbers to go on. We&rsquo;re taking everyone at their word here &mdash; the Journal, the Journal&rsquo;s sources and OpenAI&rsquo;s C-suite.
To its credit the Journal put a denial by Altman and Friar in the fifth paragraph. &ldquo;We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day,&rdquo; says a joint statement that calls the article&rsquo;s premise &ldquo;ridiculous.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the moment, the market attributes more credibility to the Journal&rsquo;s sources than to Altman and Friar. 
Publicly traded companies adjacent to OpenAI are getting smoked today &mdash; Oracle down 4.3% as we write, CoreWeave down 5.7%, Nvidia down 3.5% after touching an all-time high yesterday.
That&rsquo;s dragging down the Nasdaq as a whole. At 24,552 the index is down 1.3% from yesterday&rsquo;s record high. Ditto the S&amp;P 500, down nearly three quarters of a percent from yesterday&rsquo;s all-time high, 7,123 at last check.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The price action is giving Paradigm&rsquo;s AI authority James Altucher a sense of deja vu.
He recalls only last month when Google announced it had developed software to make memory more efficient. The memory stocks like Micron (MU) and Astera (ALAB) took a 20&ndash;30% hit.
&ldquo;I recommended MU and ALAB then,&rdquo; says James &mdash; &ldquo;and they are both up significantly since then (MU from about 300 to over 500, for instance).
&ldquo;Similarly, I'd scoop up your favorite AI stocks at bargain prices that are being created today.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s an undeniable tailwind, he says: About 86% of organizations plan to grow their AI budgets this year &mdash; and 40% expect growth of 10% or more.
Don&rsquo;t shed a tear for OpenAI, says James: He points out Google&rsquo;s Gemini AI platform has doubled its number of users in a little over a year &mdash; from 400 million to over 800 million now.
<a id="2"></a>
&ldquo;Even if OpenAI &lsquo;missed&rsquo; (they are at 800 million users versus the billion they expected at this time), AI spending and growth is up on every possible metric.
&ldquo;Spending on AI is not slowing down,&rdquo; he concludes. &ldquo;The media, as usual, is getting it wrong.&rdquo;
Speaking of questionable media narratives&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Is Iran Suddenly Doomed?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The narrative of the week is that Iran has only days before its oil industry is wrecked for good.
That is, the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports means that Iranian crude has nowhere to go. Once all its storage is full, production has to shut down &mdash; causing damage to oil wells that might be irreparable.
Sounds serious, right? It started yesterday with a rather inelegant tweet from the U.S. Treasury secretary&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7i2lqKevQVmvGeBzLwKiSs/67c1f9eb8c9b3ae30dd730875398f53c/FMF-Issue-042826-2.jpg" alt="Scott Bessent" width="540px" />
From there it was stovepiped through hawkish think tanks like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and United Against Nuclear Iran.
Then it landed on the front page of today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal&hellip;
<blockquote>Iran is scrambling to find new ways to store its oil, hoping to avoid a crippling production shutdown as a U.S. naval blockade bottles up its exports and negotiations to end the war remain deadlocked.</blockquote>
<blockquote>With oil backing up at home, Iran is reviving derelict sites known as &ldquo;junk storage,&rdquo; using improvised containers and trying to ship crude by rail to China.</blockquote>
And on Bloomberg&rsquo;s homepage&hellip;
<blockquote>Tankers laden with Iranian oil are clustering off Chabahar, a port in Iran that&rsquo;s outside the Persian Gulf but just shy of the U.S. blockade line.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Around six to eight supertankers were idling in waters near the port in the Gulf of Oman late last week, according to satellite images and analyses from United Against Nuclear Iran and maritime intelligence firm Windward, with more smaller tankers nearby.</blockquote>
Another Bloomberg story published yesterday put a date on the phenomenon: Iran would reach the point of no return sometime between May 9&ndash;18.
More objective observers, patiently examining the evidence and presenting their findings on social media, are reaching a different conclusion.
They&rsquo;re looking at satellite imagery of still-empty VLCCs, or very large crude carriers, bottled up in the Persian Gulf. They figure Iran can go another two months without cutting production.
Besides, when it comes to cutting production out of necessity, this isn&rsquo;t Iran&rsquo;s first rodeo&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4FT77AL6bEspDqKd9PagkC/1e714fcabc8d951305565b5a67b0a431/FMF-Issue-042826-3.jpg" alt="EDF Hobbies tweet" width="540px" />
Two months is a long time. It almost gets us to Independence Day weekend &mdash; at which time U.S. gasoline prices would be&hellip; what?
Two months is longer than the &ldquo;election math&rdquo; in the United States probably allows.
Check back with us between May 9&ndash;18 and we&rsquo;ll see who turns out to be right.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the meantime, U.S. oil futures have sailed up to their highest level in over two weeks.
A barrel of West Texas Intermediate traded as high as $101.50 around 8:00 a.m. EDT&hellip; although it&rsquo;s since pulled back below $100.
Aside from the possibility of a return to a shooting war in the Persian Gulf after a three-week pause, the big story today is the United Arab Emirates announcing it&rsquo;s pulling out of the OPEC cartel.
The UAE is OPEC&rsquo;s No. 3 producer &mdash; and its government strenuously denies that the decision has anything to do with frustration over years of production cuts spearheaded by its frenemies in Saudi Arabia.
&ldquo;This has nothing to do with any of our brothers or friends within the group,&rdquo; UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei tells CNBC. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been working together for years and years. We have the highest respect for the Saudis for leading OPEC.&rdquo;
More believable is his claim about the timing: &ldquo;It will have a minimum impact on the price and it will have a minimum impact on our friends at OPEC and OPEC+.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Elsewhere in the commodity complex, oil&rsquo;s gains are translating to precious metals&rsquo; losses.
Gold is down over $100 at last check to $4,578 &mdash; approaching the lows of a month ago. Chart-watchers think $4,100 is still a distinct possibility as the Midas metal continues to consolidate after the dizzying heights of late January.
Silver, meanwhile, sits at three week lows &mdash; a hair below $73.
The risk-off atmosphere is spilling into crypto &mdash; Bitcoin back under $76,000 and Ethereum below $2,300.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Elon: Paid in Planets
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;When was the last time a CEO got paid in planets?&rdquo; asks Paradigm tech-investing specialist Ray Blanco.
&ldquo;This morning,&rdquo; he tells us, &ldquo;Reuters got hold of excerpts from SpaceX's confidential S-1 &mdash; the registration statement that goes public next month. Buried in there is Elon Musk's compensation plan.
&ldquo;It's not a salary. It's a charter.
&ldquo;200 million super-voting shares unlock only if SpaceX hits a $7.5 trillion market cap and Elon plants a permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million people.
&ldquo;Do the math at $7.5 trillion and that single tranche is worth roughly $340 billion.
&ldquo;That's not Musk's salary. That's the unlock on one milestone. Hit it, and Elon doesn't just become a trillionaire.
&ldquo;He practically becomes the King of Mars.&rdquo;
Ray directs your attention to historical examples: &ldquo;In 1670, King Charles II handed the Hudson's Bay Company a royal charter granting it dominion over 1.5 million square miles of North America. Sovereignty. Trade rights. Governance.
&ldquo;The Dutch East India Company got something similar over Asia. So did the British East India Company over India.
&ldquo;Empire-building moments in human history that started with a charter that handed a private company the keys to a territory.
&ldquo;The SpaceX board just wrote one for Mars.&rdquo;
Much more to say in the run-up to SpaceX&rsquo;s IPO this summer. Stay tuned.
[Friendly reminder: Ray posted these musings a short time ago on the Daily Feed section of the Paradigm Press mobile app. The Daily feed delivers instant insights like these that frequently don&rsquo;t get published anywhere else.
What&rsquo;s more, the app is the easiest way to keep track of the buy and sell alerts of your paid publications &mdash; no sifting through email. Subscribers like you rave about the simplicity of the app. <a href="https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/PPG-App/">Download here</a>.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Final Vinyl
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Vinyl album sales in the United States increased for the 19th consecutive year in 2025,&rdquo; say the folks at Statista.
Figures from the Recording Industry Association of America show that sales bottomed in 2006 at less than one million. Last year&rsquo;s total was 46.8 million &mdash; both EPs and LPs.
The last time the number was anywhere near this high was 1988, six years after the introduction of the CD.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6yOdxBLLLZymKnEGpmJrMH/de72c4b6156a4b5bfbc941ec242fb1e4/FMF-Issue-042826-4.jpg" alt="Vinyl" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Physical goods, it appears, still hold value for many people, even in the digital age,&rdquo; writes Statista&rsquo;s Felix Richter.
That&rsquo;s even if the goods go unused, serving as collectors&rsquo; items only; figures from Luminate say only 50% of vinyl buyers own a turntable.
It stands to reason. The vinyl revival seems driven mostly by younger folks who grew up on crappy compressed digital audio &mdash; MP3 downloads at the start, streaming audio now. They don&rsquo;t know any better and they&rsquo;re content to listen to vinyl records on some $50 Chinese-made &ldquo;Victrola.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Oldsters know that serious vinyl listening is a costly endeavor. The turntable, the tonearm, the cartridge (preferably from separate manufacturers), a quality record cleaning machine like the Nitty Gritty &mdash; too much for your budget-audiophile GenX editor!
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: PLTR Wants Your Son
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Last week&rsquo;s exploration of Palantir and its advocacy for a <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/pltr-wants-your-son">return to the draft</a> prompted the following reader reflection&hellip;
&ldquo;For many years now, I&rsquo;ve been thinking about the all-volunteer Army, especially after visiting South Korea.
&ldquo;When I was there in the early 2000s I was told that &lsquo;when Korean men are 15 or 16 they would protest the army and then when they came of age, they had to spend a couple of years in the army, keeping protesters in check. That service would mature them, teach them self-discipline and make them better suited to survive as civilians.
&ldquo;Looking at our young &lsquo;soyboy men&rsquo; today who seem to lack purpose, self-discipline and motivation, I wondered if a couple of years of military service might do them some good.
&ldquo;In addition to that, it would provide job training and reduce unemployment (especially in the inner cities, where it is most needed). It could be mandatory service in the National Guard at age 18 instead of the &lsquo;real Army,&rsquo; and then for those who liked military life (or had few job prospects at home) they could enlist in the real Army at age 20. Or use their newly acquired skills to find a job.
&ldquo;Or they could go to college a bit more mature and disciplined, ready to learn rather than just party. The program could possibly be designed to address the college debt issue as well.
&ldquo;This has nothing to do with a &lsquo;warmonger&rsquo; attitude but more looking at how &lsquo;men&rsquo; are turning out since we instituted the all-volunteer Army.
&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t yet considered how this would apply to young women, never having been one. But a properly designed program might do them some good as well.
&ldquo;I always appreciate your thought-provoking commentary even when I disagree.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thanks for writing. A few thoughts&hellip;
South Korea in the early 2000s was barely 15 years removed from military dictatorship. As admirable as its rise to a first-world democracy has been&hellip; is it a model to follow?
Here in the United States, men were men and we got along just fine without a peacetime draft until the late 1940s &mdash; when the &ldquo;wise men&rdquo; surrounding President Truman decided we should become a nation permanently mobilized for war.
So that suggests the problem now lies in society at large.
I get where you&rsquo;re coming from&hellip; but I don&rsquo;t share your confidence the military can credibly take on a social engineering project and step in where the culture has failed.
The culture needs to heal on its own. No, I have no idea how that would come about!

FMF-Issue-042826-Featured

Is AI Suddenly Doomed?

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Iran: The Only Thing That Matters Now
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> So&hellip; the war did not resume over the weekend, despite the massing of U.S. military assets in the Middle East at levels unseen in over two decades.
The ceasefire has held, more or less, since April 8.
In recent days, Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards has pounded away at a single theme across his publications.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s critical to separate the geopolitical noise and signal coming from the Middle East and the war in Iran right now,&rdquo; he said in The Situation Report on Wednesday.
&ldquo;JD Vance&rsquo;s peace mission to Islamabad is noise. Trump&rsquo;s claim of bombing Iran into the Stone Age is noise. Iran&rsquo;s decision to skip the latest peace talks and threaten retaliation across the Persian Gulf countries if Trump resumes bombing is noise. The status of the ceasefire is noise.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As Jim sees it there&rsquo;s only one signal amid the noise: &ldquo;The Strait of Hormuz has effectively been closed for nearly two months.&rdquo;
You don&rsquo;t need to see the numbers on this chart to get a picture of &ldquo;before&rdquo; and &ldquo;after&rdquo; when it comes to the number of ships exiting the strait under Tehran&rsquo;s selective blockade.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2n0mSoDbvjLu9nSjye7vf2/be422f40e34ebf9d63fc42a5e5b8a3fb/FMF-Issue-042726-1.png" alt="Verified Outbound History chart" width="540px" />
Nor is there much inbound oil tanker traffic to speak of&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/SI5y30HoVhWvNJblkCtpQ/23e94d3ae1fc9c99942d4de58022de40/FMF-Issue-042726-2.png" alt="Tanker Chart" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Oil that has been delivered to South Korea, Japan and other countries in Asia recently came from tankers that left the Persian Gulf before the war began,&rdquo; Jim adds. &ldquo;It takes weeks to go from the Persian Gulf to East Asia. That &lsquo;floating pipeline&rsquo; has now dried up. The last vessels in the chain have unloaded. Reserves are now being drawn down.
&ldquo;In a matter of weeks, it will be time to shut down the factories and turn off the lights in much of the industrial world. Poorer countries will face starvation due to an absence of nitrates for fertilizer to grow crops that also come from the Persian Gulf.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Yes, Americans will avoid the worst of the consequences. Small comfort with gasoline about to jump back over $4 a gallon in many states.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has forecast a return to sub-$3 gas next year; the president says it will happen much sooner.
&ldquo;The economics suggest otherwise,&rdquo; Jim wrote his Strategic Intelligence readers today.
&ldquo;Gasoline demand is what economists call inelastic. People have to buy it regardless of price because they need it for commuting, shopping and daily life. But there&rsquo;s no free lunch. Higher fuel costs come out of other spending &mdash; dining, travel, discretionary purchases &mdash; which quietly weakens the broader economy even as fuel demand holds up.
&ldquo;The closure of the Strait of Hormuz removes roughly 20% of global oil supply from circulation. Ignore futures prices near $100 per barrel. The spot price for immediately available cargoes is closer to $140 or higher.
&ldquo;The U.S. won&rsquo;t face shortages, due to domestic production, but it won&rsquo;t escape global pricing. Energy is a world market with a world price.&rdquo;
Jim says there&rsquo;s one scenario where gas prices would fall &mdash; &ldquo;a sharp slowdown in demand driven by recession. If consumption drops enough, oil prices will fall. But that outcome would come with rising unemployment and a broad economic contraction.
<a id="2"></a>
&ldquo;Lower gas prices would not be a sign of strength. They would be a symptom of something breaking.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Spirit Airlines, Troop Transport?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The rationale for the Trump administration&rsquo;s rescue of Spirit Airlines is coming into view.
As mentioned briefly last week, the Trump administration is set to loan $500 million to Spirit in exchange for warrants that could give Uncle Sam a substantial stake in the firm.
On the surface, the move doesn&rsquo;t line up with the administration&rsquo;s previous acquisitions of equity stakes in public companies &mdash; MP Materials, USA Rare Earth, Intel and the like all have some sort of &ldquo;strategic&rdquo; value to the government. A budget airline? Not so much.
But on Friday, CBS News reported that the White House might resort to the Defense Production Act of 1950 to make the deal happen. &ldquo;The Pentagon would use Spirit's excess capacity for transporting troops, military cargo or other missions.&rdquo;
Sure enough, other struggling second-tier airlines want a piece of the action: A consortium of carriers including Frontier and Avelo have approached the government for $2.5 billion in help, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal article didn&rsquo;t bring up the military angle &mdash; but certainly it&rsquo;s on the table.
And it doesn&rsquo;t suggest the war is winding down anytime soon, does it?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For a change, the week did not begin with some sort of effort on the administration&rsquo;s part to suggest peace is at hand, tamping down oil prices.
As a result, West Texas Intermediate futures are up nearly 3% on the day at $97.11 &mdash; on the high end of their trading range since mid-April.
The major U.S. stock indexes are in the red, but not by much. The S&amp;P 500 is down 0.15% at 7.154. The losses in the Dow and the Nasdaq are a bit steeper. Big movers include Shell &mdash; down 1.3% on news that it plans to acquire Canada&rsquo;s ARC Resources for $13.6 billion.
Microsoft is down a half percent after word that its ongoing breakup with OpenAI is moving to a new phase: Microsoft&rsquo;s license to OpenAI&rsquo;s intellectual property is no longer exclusive. And while OpenAI will continue to fork over a share of its revenue to Microsoft, the flow of funds in the other direction will stop.
➢ Meanwhile, congratulations are in order for PRO-level subscribers to Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network. Friday they took 200% gains on POET Technologies after barely a month. (That&rsquo;s just the stock, not options!)
Precious metals are pulling back modestly, gold at $4,678 and silver at $75.09. Crypto is struggling for the next leg higher, Bitcoin just over $77,000 and Ethereum below $2,300.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Follow-up: Maine Gov. Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that would have temporarily paused construction of large-scale data centers.
We mentioned this bill a couple of Saturdays ago &mdash; part of a nationwide backlash driven by the perception that data centers are driving up electric bills.
Mills wanted an exemption for a data center currently under construction in the town of Jay &mdash; she said it would bring 800 temporary and 100 permanent jobs &mdash; but lawmakers wouldn&rsquo;t oblige. &ldquo;I supported the exemption and would have signed this bill if it had included it,&rdquo; says Mills.
An override in the legislature looks unlikely.
Maine was the first state where such a proposal reached the governor&rsquo;s desk. It likely won&rsquo;t be the last. We&rsquo;ll keep you posted.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The IRS, Powered by Palantir
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Good news: The IRS is cutting personnel. Bad news: The IRS is replacing personnel with AI.
&ldquo;The agency plans to replace the nearly 30,000 employees it lost to Trump administration cuts with a new army of auditors, one that doesn&rsquo;t sleep,&rdquo; writes independent reporter Ken Kilppenstein.
Klippenstein has obtained documents laying out the IRS&rsquo; plans to force taxpayers&rsquo; compliance with, as one of the documents says, &ldquo;minimal human contact.&rdquo;
Key to the plans is software developed by&hellip; drumroll, please&hellip; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/pltr-wants-your-son">the civic-minded folk at Palantir</a>.
The software &ldquo;allows IRS investigators and auditors to conduct &lsquo;near real-time data analysis&rsquo; through a custom tool called the &lsquo;Selection and Analytic Platform,&rsquo; or SNAP,&rdquo; Klippenstein continues.
&ldquo;What that means in practice is that millions of middle-income Americans who once fell below the threshold of what scarce human auditors could manage are now within reach. The little guy just became a lot easier to monitor at scale.&rdquo;
As we&rsquo;ve chronicled in the past, small-business owners and the self-employed are particularly subject to IRS shakedowns. They&rsquo;re not W2 employees and thus they can be nailed more easily for inflating deductions and (especially) underreporting income.
Go figure: The IRS personnel cuts engineered by Elon Musk and his DOGE boys &mdash; one of the few meaningful accomplishments they racked up last year &mdash; is clearing the way for tax collection to become more efficient and more ruthless.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This is wild &mdash; an AI-enabled mashup of 1970s decor, a 1990s Saturday Night Live bit and 2020s doomerism&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/iFvjCMDzjlONU8Dq5lfF9/f7bf86465570f85236bf536ae7f8e315/FMF-Issue-042726-3.png" alt="Comedic Relief" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Catch-Up Day
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s been several days since we&rsquo;ve had a proper mailbag &mdash; and we start with a follow-up to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/limbo">Wednesday&rsquo;s edition</a> centered on the state of limbo between Washington and Tehran.
In particular, a reader overseas takes issue with the statement by Arta Moeini from the Institute for Peace &amp; Diplomacy: &ldquo;The current status quo places a greater burden on the Islamic Republic than on Washington.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I think that is a very U.S.-centric point of view. While the Strait of Hormuz is closed, most Asian countries, including some close U.S. allies, are close to running out of oil and LNG, and the pressure from those allies will become fierce in the next few days or weeks. European flights are already being cancelled for lack of jet fuel, and even if the strait was opened again tomorrow, it would take weeks or even months for demand and supply to stabilize again.
&ldquo;In the U.S., as many have pointed out, we are nominally energy sufficient, but if Trump starts trying to meet our allies' needs from U.S. production, we will soon see long lines at the pumps, with gas prices in double digits. If we don't help our allies, they may soon seek allies elsewhere.
&ldquo;And then there is China, who is hardly an ally, but on whom the U.S. is dependent for many critical items. People talk about rare earths, but even most medical supplies come from China, among many other things we don't think about until the shelves go bare.
&ldquo;In the end, I suspect that Iran is better positioned to endure another four&ndash;eight weeks of the current situation than is the U.S. Beyond that, who knows?&rdquo;
Dave responds: All good points. We just wanted to put a contrarian line of thought out there for consideration.
I too bristle at the nonchalance with which U.S. media approach the privation facing hundreds of millions of people as a result of this war. And not just in developing countries; depending on who you want to believe, Japan could be in a world of hurt in another 10 days or so. But as long as WTI futures stay under $100, almost no one seems to care&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;As usual, I'm fashionably late to the party, but I wanted to weigh in on the political vitriol issue,&rdquo; writes one of our semi-regulars.
&ldquo;A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... (i.e. when I was in college) I read in a magazine article &mdash; something to the effect that the only reason to hate is fear.
&ldquo;My reaction was &lsquo;That's ridiculous! I KNOW hate and I don't fear the person I hate.&rsquo; Soon after, I received a letter from a friend with a single line in it that instantly transformed my hatred for that person to pity.
&ldquo;After a few years&rsquo; deep introspection I had to admit that there was something I had feared. It just wasn't obvious or easy to identify. My friend's letter changed the way I saw that person so that she no longer had the ability -- or more to the point I no longer gave her the power &mdash; to affect how I felt about myself. That is what I had feared.
&ldquo;And so I came to understand that the author of that article was correct: All hatred has fear as its root. Anyone who denies this isn't looking deep enough.
&ldquo;No matter where they are on the political plot chart, those of your readers who cannot bear any
criticism of their cherished political beliefs or praise for a position they don't share need to ask
themselves what it is they fear to make them so thin-skinned? You don't need me to tell you
that's on them, not you. I'm just saying it to let you know we rational readers know it too,
&ldquo;So if you are still at a loss for &lsquo;what to do,&rsquo; I have an answer for you: You keep doing you. You
aren't responsible for your readers' feelings or inability to confront their own fears.
&ldquo;Your incites... er... insights and those of other Paradigm editors give me perspectives on the issues I don't get elsewhere. I'm sure a very large majority of your readers agree with me. To those who don't... well, you know how to delete an email without reading it, don't you?
&ldquo;So, Dave, please don't &lsquo;do&rsquo; anything other than what you have been doing.&rdquo;
Dave: Gee, I forgot the part about &ldquo;what to do&rdquo; after the mailbag that <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-strait-is-open-maybe-sort-of">went off the rails</a> a week ago Friday.
But after the gracious responses of folks like yourself since, I&rsquo;ve decided to&hellip; keep on keeping on. Thank you kindly.

FMF-Issue-042726-Featured

Iran: The Only Thing That Matters Now

FMF-Issue-050126(Featured)

The Day America Shut Down

FMF-Issue-04-23-26-Featured

PLTR Wants Your Son

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />A Ceasefire Until&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> So&hellip; a day later we&rsquo;re still in limbo.
After we hit &ldquo;send&rdquo; on yesterday&rsquo;s edition, the president announced he was unilaterally extending the ceasefire with Iran &ldquo;until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.&rdquo;
In other words, he did not set an expiration date &mdash; instead putting the ball in Tehran&rsquo;s court.
The response from the adviser to Iran&rsquo;s parliament speaker was You do you, Donald.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4zXILbCdwqOPJxpu1G0maI/79bb4738e5cab3d6a788c3fe14b128e1/FMF-Issue-042226-1.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. And Trump will continue the blockade on Iranian ports and ships,&rdquo; our Jim Rickards says on the Paradigm mobile app.
&ldquo;The danger hasn&rsquo;t passed yet. Economic damage will continue to pile up until a deal is reached. And a return to fighting remains possible.&rdquo;
By the way, that U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and ships is looking shaky. The Financial Times &mdash; citing figures from the cargo tracking group Vortexas &mdash; reports that at least 34 &ldquo;Iran-linked&rdquo; oil tankers have bypassed the blockade since it began nine days ago.
Not surprising. U.S. warships enforcing the blockade are spread thin, not least because they&rsquo;re staying out of the range of Iranian anti-ship missiles and drones.
At the same time, Iranian forces have seized two containerships that tried to run Tehran&rsquo;s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the moment, however, Trump has what he wants &mdash; and the Iranian side does not.
When the ceasefire came into effect a couple of weeks ago, Quincy Institute executive VP Trita Parsi projected a possible outcome &mdash; &ldquo;no deal, no sanctions relief, no nuclear compromise, no return to war, while Iran continues to control the strait.&rdquo;
Which is where we stand more or less this morning. &ldquo;Not a stable situation,&rdquo; Parsi tweets now, &ldquo;but one in which Trump pockets the central thing he sought &mdash; exiting the war &mdash; while Iran is bereft of the main thing it was looking for: sanctions lifting.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The current status quo places a greater burden on the Islamic Republic than on Washington,&rdquo; agrees Arta Moeini from the Institute for Peace &amp; Diplomacy &mdash; &ldquo;a pressure that will only intensify so long as the blockade persists.&rdquo;
Which means as he sees it the status quo can&rsquo;t hold indefinitely: &ldquo;It's only a matter of time before Iran attempts to impose new regional costs of its own to break the U.S. blockade, a move that would likely collapse the fragile ceasefire entirely.&rdquo;
So where does this all leave the markets?
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Markets Today: Oil up, Stocks up Too
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Because the tension level remains &ldquo;elevated,&rdquo; oil futures actually rose despite Trump&rsquo;s announcement. West Texas Intermediate is up over 3.5% at last check &mdash; two pennies shy of $93.
That&rsquo;s still vastly below the real-world price of &ldquo;wet&rdquo; barrels that we continue to spotlight &mdash; frequently in the neighborhood of $130.
Key point: May oil futures expire today. Keen observers of the oil market are noting that &ldquo;open interest&rdquo; &mdash; the total number of futures contracts that are not yet closed, expired or settled &mdash; have totally collapsed relative to a typical expiration day.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5t4XvNFwOLmvr77IIIMKbD/c42d77cc9f51eb6622925b85b60d180e/FMF-Issue-042226-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
But that real-world shortage continues to manifest in unlikely supply-chain snags.
From the BBC: &ldquo;The boss of the world's biggest condom maker, Karex, says the firm will raise its prices by up to 30% or possibly more if the Iran war continues to disrupt supplies of the raw materials [derived from oil] used in its products.&rdquo;
Karex, based in Malaysia, makes 5 billion condoms a year and supplies major global brands including Durex and Trojan.
&ldquo;The good news,&rdquo; one wag quips on X, &ldquo;is we&rsquo;re going to make a dent in the fertility crisis.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Meanwhile, the S&amp;P 500 is back to its record levels set last Friday &mdash; offsetting all of yesterday&rsquo;s and Monday&rsquo;s losses.
At last check the index is up nearly 0.9% to 7,125. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s gains are stronger, the Dow&rsquo;s a little weaker.
Among the big movers today is Spirit Airlines: The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report that the Trump administration is set to loan $500 million to Spirit in exchange for warrants that could give Uncle Sam a substantial stake in the firm. In bankruptcy, Spirit is a thinly traded penny stock with the ticker FLYYQ &mdash; and it&rsquo;s up over 32% on the day.
[Just in: Life comes at you fast. Make that 538%!]
Meanwhile, congratulations are in order for members of the Paradigm Mastermind Group. Yesterday they took profits of 220% in just under two years on Lincoln Educational Services. And today they bagged 309% in just under a year on Amkor Technology.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Forget the day-to-day stock market movement: Where do we stand in the big picture?
Paradigm senior investment director Enrique Abeyta passes along an updated chart from the folks at Bespoke Investment Group. It tracks the Nasdaq Composite&rsquo;s performance during the dot-com boom and the current AI boom.
It sets the starting point of the dot-com boom with the launch of the Netscape web browser in December 1994. And it sets the start of the current boom with the launch of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022.
Here&rsquo;s the latest chart, updated to reflect the volatility set off by the Iran war.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3AIF7u7eyk8YhdsbrDdGNW/788806825bfb4894493dcff97affdd87/FMF-Issue-042226-3.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Interesting. If history rhymes, the volatility brought on by the war is analogous to the volatility brought on in 1998 by Russia&rsquo;s debt default and the resulting collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.
Speaking of &ldquo;analogues,&rdquo; Enrique passes along a spooky stat from Bespoke: The S&amp;P 500 is up 17.8% so far during Trump&rsquo;s second term. The index was up 17.6% at this time in 2018 during Trump&rsquo;s first term.
➢ Checking the dollar prices for non-dollar assets: Gold is nearly flat after yesterday&rsquo;s beat-down at $4,734 but silver is up over a buck to $77.67. The real action is in crypto: Bitcoin is on the verge of $79,000 for the first time since early February and Ethereum is approaching $2,400.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Scarce Electricity and the Uranium Boom
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And now a shocking development in our ongoing chronicle of the super-stressed U.S. power grid.
In 2022 we started warning about the potential for rolling blackouts in some regions of the country. In 2024, long before the mainstream caught on, we warned that AI data centers would become <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai">&ldquo;the monster that ate the power grid.&rdquo;</a>
Here&rsquo;s the latest, courtesy of Paradigm natural-resources pro Matt Badiali: &ldquo;The problem isn&rsquo;t just that we aren&rsquo;t adding new sources of electricity fast enough &mdash; it&rsquo;s worse. The U.S. is actually going backward.
&ldquo;The current administration killed somewhere around 30&ndash;35 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power. This includes TotalEnergies&rsquo; (NYSE: TTE) windfarms: 4 GW offshore North Carolina and New York, 10 GW offshore Virginia and 22 GW on federal lands.
&ldquo;Those are just a few examples of projects specifically killed by new legislation. Companies shelved or delayed another 266 GW (about 1,891 projects). That was due to tax credit rollbacks, permitting freezes and funding clawbacks.
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what your political position is&hellip; we need electricity. All electricity. Give me solar. Give me wind. Give me coal. Hell, give me a hamster on a wheel&hellip;
&ldquo;Because if we don&rsquo;t have it, we ALL will pay much higher prices.&rdquo;
Oh, and those stories you might have seen about how rising gasoline prices are spurring renewed demand for electric vehicles?
&ldquo;Batteries aren&rsquo;t power sources,&rdquo; Matt reminds us. &ldquo;They must be filled up&hellip; with electrons instead of gasoline. The competition for those electrons will grow. Demand from data centers, artificial intelligence and EVs are all soaring.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> How to play it? &ldquo;Nuclear energy is one of the principal areas of energy growth,&rdquo; says Matt.
&ldquo;According to the World Nuclear Association, total capacity could reach 1,446 GWe (gigawatts electric) by 2050. That&rsquo;s up from 398 GWe today.&rdquo;
The scare from the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 throttled the nuclear industry. Dozens of reactors were shut down across Europe. Nuclear energy made up over 15% of the global electricity mix in 2000&hellip; and less than 9% today.
&ldquo;The declining demand worked its way down to the uranium miners,&rdquo; says Matt. The capital fled. Production flattened out. In 2025, there was a 5.4 million pound supply deficit. By 2040, supply will hit 201 million pounds, up just 14% from 2025. Demand, however, will grow to 397 million pounds, up 118% from 2025.
&ldquo;This is a classic setup for higher uranium prices. And as with most mined commodities, the industry can&rsquo;t fix this before those prices go up.&rdquo;
This week Matt recommended an especially attractive uranium producer.for his Real Wealth Insider readers.
If you prefer to go the more conservative ETF route, there&rsquo;s always the Global X Uranium ETF (URA). [Dave&rsquo;s disclosure: I own some URA.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Crypto Fraud, Strait of Hormuz Edition
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Go figure: Crypto fraudsters are making hay from the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
As you might be aware, the Iranian government is keen to collect tolls through the Strait of Hormuz &mdash; $2 million for the biggest oil tankers. And as you might have heard from colleague Chris Campbell at Altucher Confidential, that toll is <a href="https://altucherconfidential.com/posts/irans-bitcoin-tollbooth">payable in Bitcoin</a>.
So there&rsquo;s your context for this Reuters story&hellip;
<blockquote>Fraudulent messages promising safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for cryptocurrency have been sent to some shipping firms with vessels stranded west of the waterway, said Greek maritime risk management firm Marisks&hellip;</blockquote>
<blockquote>Marisks on April 21 issued an alert warning shipowners that unknown actors, claiming to represent the Iranian authorities, had sent shipping firms a message demanding transit fees in cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin or Tether, for clearance.</blockquote>
On Monday it seems the captain of an Indian-flagged ship tried to transit the strait, believing he&rsquo;d ponied up the fee to the Iranian authorities on behalf of his employer.
He learned the hard way he had not&hellip; when the ship was hit by Iranian gunfire. He quickly turned tail.
For the record, the number of ships transiting the strait on any given day recently is in the single or low double digits. Before Washington and Tel Aviv launched the war on Feb. 28, it averaged 120&ndash;140.
[Update: The plot thickens. An official in India&rsquo;s Ministry of Ports denies the Reuters report. &ldquo;We spoke with the owner of the vessel&hellip; and he confirmed that it is fake news and no such incident had happened.&rdquo;]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Lowering the Temperature
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave, glad to see you received a lot of supportive responses,&rdquo; a reader writes after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/america-then-and-now-1976-2026">yesterday&rsquo;s extended mailbag edition</a>.
&ldquo;I think my favorite is the person who said he didn't remember subscribing to any of the reader's emails, LOL. It's your platform and I am thankful because it makes me know and think about subjects in a way I wouldn't otherwise.
&ldquo;I think a lot about so-called TDS &mdash; especially when it comes to you being attacked by both &lsquo;sides&rsquo; &mdash; and have come to the conclusion that TDS is not one-sided. It is suffered by both the people who think Trump is Hitler and can't do anything right and the people who think he is their savior and can't do anything wrong. Same disease, different symptoms :)
&ldquo;Keep doing your thing and if it ruffles feathers, then that probably means you are doing something right.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Reading your received responses yesterday, I just want to say that I am quite happy to be included among what is shown to be a well-mannered and informed group of grateful readers,&rdquo; says another.
&ldquo;I well appreciate the scope and intensity of your daily inputs and the effort that goes into sharing them widely for such an affordable price.
&ldquo;You have added greatly to my personal perspective and enjoyable retirement of almost 30 years. Just your recommendation of Neil Howe&rsquo;s books has been a great source of personal reflection and understanding.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Hey Dave, keep up the great work,&rdquo; says a third. &ldquo;I have cut back drastically on the daily emails I receive. Yours is the only one I look forward to reading. Love your unique perspective. I feel fully informed after reading it.
&ldquo;Regarding the division among us, it is created by the evil forces. Please remember, everyone, we need a revolution, not a civil war.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thank you for the work you do and your 5 Bullets, Dave,&rdquo; says our final correspondent today.
&ldquo;There is just so much noise and banter out there that has no substance. You obviously do and have done over the years a lot of digging and musing that just gives a different perspective.
&ldquo;And I think in such a nutso time as this that really helps people see the picture in a different light. Always look forward to what you have to say.
&ldquo;And Paradigm Press and the services I&rsquo;ve chosen have absolutely given my Roth a serious boost because of the thoughtful, expert advice from many different angles. But it&rsquo;s also fun, interesting and thoughtful.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thank you, sir, for affirming why we do what we do.
And thanks to everyone who corresponded in recent days &mdash; especially the self-described longtimers who don&rsquo;t usually write. It&rsquo;s restored both my faith in humanity&hellip; and my conviction that this e-letter has the most informed and engaged readership in the business!

FMF-Issue-042226-featured

Limbo

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Limbo
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Everything feels as if it&rsquo;s in limbo today.
U.S.-Iranian talks may or may not be on, ahead of the ceasefire expiring tomorrow.
Donald Trump&rsquo;s choice for Federal Reserve chair is speaking to a Senate committee &mdash; but the nomination might not come up for a vote before the current chair&rsquo;s term is up next month.
Companies can now formally apply for tariff refunds &mdash; but the online &ldquo;portal&rdquo; is glitching and the timeline for payments is, shall we say, fluid.
About the only certainty is that Apple will remain in steady hands, a company veteran promoted from within to succeed Tim Cook as CEO.
Amid that backdrop, oil is up over 3% to $92.44. The major U.S. stock indexes are flat, the S&amp;P 500 just under 7,100. Precious metals are selling off, gold at $4,743 and silver under $77. Crypto is struggling for traction with Bitcoin below $75,000 and Ethereum just over $2,300.
Meanwhile, jet fuel sells for $200 a barrel &mdash; a development that&rsquo;s prompted Alaska Air to give up on providing earnings guidance to Wall Street analysts for the time being. ALK shares are down 4.7% on the day.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> While we wait for the next proverbial shoe to drop, we step back for an unusual 5 Bullets edition today.
The background: A reader mailbag that was already getting &ldquo;spirited&rdquo; this month turned downright &ldquo;hostile&rdquo; last week.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-strait-is-open-maybe-sort-of/#5">It culminated Friday</a> with one outraged reader saying our organization was aligned with &ldquo;the anti-democratic movement under the spell of a fascist from New York&rdquo;... and another coming from the other side of the political divide who advised your editor to pursue &ldquo;deep personal introspection and maybe professional assistance.&rdquo;
I said I&rsquo;d take the weekend to think over some sort of policy. The last time things were spinning out of control like this was during the 2024 presidential campaign. Then, addressing the situation was fairly easy: I refrained from any topic that entailed bad-mouthing a single presidential or vice presidential candidate.
But since there&rsquo;s no presidential election on the horizon now. I said I was at a loss for what to do.
I&rsquo;m still at a loss for what to do&hellip; but in the meantime, my predicament brought forth a small torrent of reader feedback.
Rarely do we devote the bulk of a 5 Bullets issue to the mailbag &mdash; but while everything is in limbo today, it seems like the thing to do.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave, the two letters you highlighted Friday are the classic case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Keep up the good work,&rdquo; says one representative note.
&ldquo;Keep pushing buttons, LOL,&rdquo; says another.
&ldquo;I have a solution for all the people who have been bashing you,&rdquo; says a third.
&ldquo;There are a number of commentators out there that I have watched and/or read and don't agree with or like. Here's my solution &mdash; quit watching or reading. It works really well!
&ldquo;I, for one, appreciate receiving the FREE daily 5 Bullets. Don't always agree with everything written, however (no but there) always enjoy the quick, easy-to-read content. Same goes for the upsell emails from Paradigm.
&ldquo;Keep it up Dave, I appreciate you and your work.&rdquo;
A couple of the reader notes inspired some reflection. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Toxic Politics and Economic Anxiety
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Yep, indeed, Brother Dave G, the rancor out here is off the bleepin&rsquo; rails,&rdquo; writes one of our regulars.
&ldquo;Most of us have one foot on an economic banana peel as a consequence of decades of economic betrayals. Manifests itself in all kinds of incivility.
&ldquo;So it ain&rsquo;t personal Brother Dave. You have zip to do with their/our rage other than holding the mirror up. (Might want to revisit some of the great work you&rsquo;ve done on this subject. Then again, might fill your inbox even more. LOL!)&rdquo;
Dave responds: Good reminder about economic insecurity.
There would have been no George Floyd riots in 2020 absent the economic anxiety brought on by COVID lockdowns. I said as much <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2020/06/02/were-all-hajis-now/">even as the riots were still underway</a>.
&ldquo;Two weeks to flatten the curve&rdquo; had become two months and counting. Expanded unemployment benefits were about to run out, and so was the eviction moratorium. In the end, they were both extended &mdash; but at the end of May 2020, legions of baristas and Uber drivers who&rsquo;d been cooped up in their crappy apartments had a legit fear they were about to be rendered penniless and homeless.
If it hadn&rsquo;t been George Floyd, it would have been some other catalyst.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the years since, the economic anxiety has taken on a weirdly partisan bent. 
During the Biden administration, Democrats lamented a &ldquo;vibecession&rdquo; &mdash; people complaining about their personal economic circumstances despite healthy GDP and job numbers.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3A7os8NmP3NZHPc1sKe6dS/99e37e05dc105222f888e9558d022151/FMF-Issue-042126-1.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The partisan shoe landed on the other foot last year &mdash; Donald Trump denying any issues of &ldquo;affordability&rdquo; among the masses.
And with the Iran war now underway, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a truly odd remark the other day&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2Mr4IkvTnaDx6aeyUQrMFE/10068465460613587bdeeb4a2da535e6/FMF-Issue-042126-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Bottom line: No matter who&rsquo;s in power, sunny statistical aggregates never trump one&rsquo;s lived experience. It comes back to that joke from the 20th century about how a recession is when your neighbor is out of a job&hellip; and a depression is when you&rsquo;re out of a job.
Now onto some feedback I wasn&rsquo;t expecting in the least&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />America Then and Now (1976&ndash;2026)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;I have to apologize for any bashing I have done toward you recently,&rdquo; says one of the readers who&rsquo;d been taking me to task.
&ldquo;After reading about how you state that you were bashed from both sides in 2024 and still very badly in the toxic spring of 2026&hellip; I must say I very much liked your commentary on Friday. With the political atmosphere we have today it must be very difficult to decide how and what to put into print.
&ldquo;I am 71 years old and have lived through many difficult times and today&rsquo;s polarized atmosphere seems akin to the &rsquo;60s and &rsquo;70s.
&ldquo;Please accept my apology and please continue all your hard efforts to bring coverage of current events to all of us&hellip; even when some of us don't seem to appreciate it at times.&rdquo;
Dave: Apology accepted. Truly gracious.
You got me thinking here. I feel as if the atmosphere now is worse than it was in the &rsquo;60s and &rsquo;70s. Granted, I don&rsquo;t have teenage/adult memories of that era as you do &mdash; but with the nation&rsquo;s 250th birthday coming up, I&rsquo;ve been thinking about my recollection of the Bicentennial as a schoolboy in 1976.
I seem to remember people were happy to be Americans then &mdash; even in the shadow of Vietnam and Watergate and inflation and the oil shock &mdash; in a way we&rsquo;re not now.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> My working theory is that 50 years ago, the revulsion with the system was universal &mdash; transcending partisan lines. 
Think Peter Finch in Network: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as mad as hell and I&rsquo;m not going to take this anymore!&rdquo;
People were disgusted, yes &mdash; but it wasn&rsquo;t a case of &ldquo;Everything would be fine if only my tribe were in charge and the people in the other tribe went away.&rdquo;
Everyone in charge of the system was scared they were losing the consent of the governed.
It was only in that atmosphere that the Church Committee was possible. The Beltway class felt as if the only way to retain their credibility was to start coming clean &mdash; even if it meant disclosing to the American people that their government had been spying on everyone from John Birchers to Black Panthers. For a few weeks, at least, it seemed as if the &ldquo;deep state&rdquo; of that day might actually be reined in.
Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976 precisely because he was the first major-party candidate in decades who had no prior experience in Washington, D.C. (And when people felt Carter didn&rsquo;t work out, they turned to another D.C. outsider in Ronald Reagan.)
If you&rsquo;re into Strauss-and-Howe generational theory, none of this is especially surprising. The &rsquo;60s and &rsquo;70s were a &ldquo;Second Turning.&rdquo; There was strife, yes, but people didn&rsquo;t feel as if it was existential. Here in a &ldquo;Fourth Turning,&rdquo; they do. The stakes are perceived to be of Great Depression-World War II scale.
To truly appreciate the differences between then and now, ponder this tidbit from author Bryan Burrough, writing a decade ago in Time.
<blockquote>In a single 18-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day. Because they were typically detonated late at night, few caused serious injury, leading to a kind of grudging public acceptance. The deadliest underground attack of the decade, in fact, killed all of four people, in the January 1975 bombing of a Wall Street restaurant. News accounts rarely carried any expression or indication of public outrage.</blockquote>
Something like that nowadays would result in martial law, at least in the major cities &mdash; and a vicious vendetta by the party in power (whichever party that might be) against its perceived enemies.
Depressing stuff, but it&rsquo;s been on my mind. Thank you again for your magnanimity&hellip; and the chance to reflect alongside the readership.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />&ldquo;IdPol,&rdquo; 2026
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave, identity politics has gripped people so tightly that any hint of criticism of someone&rsquo;s preferred overlord feels like a personal attack to many of these people,&rdquo; a reader writes.
&ldquo;I follow a Facebook page called Government Sucks and the admins there deal with the same thing. As a Libertarian, I am always accused of being on the &lsquo;other&rsquo; side whenever I point out a flaw on either side.
&ldquo;FWIW, this daily missive is worth well more than the zero dollars and zero cents I pay for it. Your somewhat unique ability to look past a partisan view of events adds a lot of value for your readers. If some people can&rsquo;t see past their own sense of indignation, they probably shouldn&rsquo;t be participating in a market that could not care less about their feelings.
&ldquo;What our overlords do and say does impact the markets we are trying to understand, and profit from. It would be remiss not to point out how these actions, on either side, affect our money.
&ldquo;Please keep doing what you do, exactly as you do. For each of the easily offended douche canoes who write in, there are probably multitudes more who appreciate what you do and how you do it. Try not to let the bitchers bother you. They&rsquo;re a minority, and their blind allegiances will hinder their success anyway.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;In response to the vitriolic responses that you have been trying to address recently in 5 Bullets, and particularly Friday, I wanted to send you some encouragement.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Thank you for providing us with your perspective on a wide range of issues. You&rsquo;ve read enough of these emails to be looking for a &lsquo;but,&rsquo; so I&rsquo;m trying hard to express this without using that word and to be honest, anything you write to which I object makes my thanks even more relevant because you are challenging my biases and perceptions.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree with all of your positions, because I like to think for myself and come to my own conclusions. Again, a but-less thank you from me.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;&lsquo;Deep personal introspection&rsquo;? LMAO!&rdquo; a reader responds to the second of Friday&rsquo;s heated emails.
&ldquo;Last I checked, this is a financial newsletter, not a self-help yoga guide to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. Ommmmm&hellip;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t sweat the comments from the losers with a digital megaphone. Nobody cares what their opinion is, despite their perceived self-importance. I don&rsquo;t recall subscribing to their newsletter.
&ldquo;And if you had no opinion whatsoever in the current sea of madness and stupidity, I&rsquo;d be more worried&hellip;&rdquo;
Dave: Exactly. You don&rsquo;t last long in this line of work if you go milquetoast, split the middle, play it safe.
That&rsquo;s what conventional financial media do all the time &mdash; and it&rsquo;s why readers seek out people like us in the first place. As I like to say, we&rsquo;re the original &ldquo;alternative media&rdquo; &mdash; going back a century to when Roger Babson was warning that the Roaring Twenties would end in tears. (It was not a popular opinion at the time!)
And actually, I did perform a bit of public introspection one day last May. It&rsquo;s about as personal as I&rsquo;ll ever get in these pages. For anyone who thinks I&rsquo;m too &ldquo;cynical,&rdquo; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/9-11-the-financial-crisis-and-covid">it&rsquo;s worth a look</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Parting Thoughts
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Two more notes that I especially appreciate before we go&hellip;
&ldquo;Thank you for keeping &lsquo;The Five&rsquo; open for business as I&rsquo;ve accompanied you on this journey for at least the last 10 years. I appreciate the cutting-edge viewpoint with which to consider my choices for investing.
&ldquo;Your twin virtues of passion for your subject and your sense of humor are not lost on me and obviously on many of your readers. I love it when you print the rants from readers accusing you of being Trump deranged or a Trump toady &mdash; good news that you piss off both ends.
&ldquo;Congratulations! I know integrity when I see it and I&rsquo;m here for the next 10 years. Do continue.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Man, some folks don't have a clue when someone such as you tries to keep them informed on all fronts,&rdquo; says our final correspondent.
&ldquo;I receive over 150 emails per day. Yours is the one I look forward to the most. Keep up the good work!&rdquo;
Dave: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And thanks for the ride through this unusual edition of 5 Bullets. Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow &mdash; when presumably we&rsquo;ll be out of limbo.

SINGAPORE – JANUARY 16, 2024: A stamp printed in USA shows American Revolution Bicentennial, circa 1976
2413201215

shutterstock 2413201215

America Then and Now (1976–2026)

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Paper Oil
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Uhhh&hellip; You didn&rsquo;t really think there was a breakthrough in the U.S.-Iran conflict on Friday, right?
Your editor exercised <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-strait-is-open-maybe-sort-of">caution and skepticism</a> even as the news was still breaking &mdash; a stance that&rsquo;s vindicated here on Monday morning.
After we went to virtual press Friday afternoon, our macro maven Jim Rickards affirmed my suspicions on the Paradigm Press mobile app: &ldquo;President Trump and the Iranian mullahs agree on essentially nothing. Iran wants its frozen funds back and the U.S. naval blockade to end. Trump wants Iran&rsquo;s enriched uranium and the Strait of Hormuz fully open. Neither side will concede easily&hellip;
&ldquo;A return to war remains probable. Needless to say, markets have not priced this in.&rdquo;
We won&rsquo;t take up space with everything that happened over the weekend. Although the meme-o-sphere has summed it up reasonably well&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2t8yzPcuzc4kTaZyIXQti8/2474447ae0d3d0554a56385e945355a6/FMF-Issue-042026_1_.jpg" alt="The Strait is open Meme" width="540px" />
Suffice it to say that today oil is up, stocks are down &mdash; and there&rsquo;s no Monday-morning &ldquo;stick-save&rdquo; that Trump has posted on his Truth Social site.
Still, at under $90 a barrel, the price of oil you see quoted in the media bears no relation to what&rsquo;s happening in the real world.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The disconnect has become maddening &mdash; at least for some folks who think about money for a living&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3pB3kihU6bOheQNaVkeJ3H/e2174c341414fb28890ad60ffdf71bcd/FMF-Issue-042026_2_.jpg" alt="Market hitting all time highs tweet" width="540px" />
In large part, it comes back to the &ldquo;paper price&rdquo; of oil &mdash; that is, the price of oil futures quoted on CNBC &mdash; versus the price of physical barrels for delivery.
As we&rsquo;ve mentioned regularly in recent days, there&rsquo;s a yawning gap between the two; the real stuff trades for 50% more than the paper price.
As long as Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude trade under the round number of $100, the stock market thinks it&rsquo;s all good.
But real barrels trading for $150 or more tell a different story&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;The world is facing a historic energy crisis worse than prior energy supply crunches, including in 1973, 1979, 1987 and the 2020 pandemic,&rdquo; Jim Rickards wrote Thursday to his PRO-level members of Strategic Intelligence.
Wall Street bankers and brokers are locked into the narrative that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen in two&ndash;three weeks.
&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; says Jim, &ldquo;they&rsquo;ve been saying two&ndash;three weeks for nine weeks. That&rsquo;s getting old.
&ldquo;On the other hand, we have experts who are in physical energy markets. They&rsquo;re not traders. They own tankers, buy and sell cargoes, operate loading and unloading facilities and run refineries. Some are government officials responsible for keeping the lights on and the factories running in places like South Korea and Japan.
&ldquo;These participants focus on one thing only &mdash; when the energy runs out, the lights go off. Data is no substitute for actual oil, natural gas or refined product.
&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re hearing from the market analysts is relentlessly optimistic, with some allowance for short-term inflation. What we&rsquo;re hearing from those in physical markets is dire and on the verge of panic.
&ldquo;Those in physical markets have it right. They can&rsquo;t pretend the way traders can.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But don&rsquo;t take it from Jim. Take it from someone much closer to the situation &mdash; Saudi Arabian finance minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan.
In a remark completely overlooked by corporate media, Al-Jadaan spoke up during a conference late last week: &ldquo;You see the screen, $90 a barrel &mdash; good luck if you get an oil barrel for $90. It&rsquo;s $120, $130, $140, $150, $160 even through the last few weeks.&rdquo;
And those are just &ldquo;normal&rdquo; purchases of physical barrels in Europe and Asia. There are extremes like $286 a barrel in Sri Lanka &mdash; the island nation off the coast of India.
How long can this disconnect go on?
Answers shortly &mdash; after we remind you that these manipulations are nothing new&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The CIA and the Oil Price
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The market for oil futures has been used to mask a host of manipulations for over four decades.
The veteran oil industry journalist James Norman documented these manipulations extensively in his 2008 book The Oil Card.
Modern oil futures as we know them began trading in New York in 1983 &mdash; only months after President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 66. Under NSDD-66, Washington began colluding with Saudi Arabia to drive down oil prices. Objective: Make Soviet oil exports dirt-cheap and bankrupt the Evil Empire.
One of the leading global oil traders in the 1970s quickly became one of the biggest players in the nascent oil futures market. Transworld Oil, controlled by John Deuss, accounted for up to 30% of NYMEX oil trade &mdash; most of it on the short side, betting prices would fall. Deuss had long-rumored ties to the CIA&hellip; and it was CIA chief William Casey who did much to implement NSDD-66.
Crude traded around $30 a barrel at the time NYMEX oil futures began trading in 1983. By the late '80s, oil was in a range between $12&ndash;22. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/47kWYqsMTuH7AnCycxD4pU/a070c30f6490ae890035c565703cb2f9/FMF-Issue-042026_3_.jpg" alt="1989 Photo of berlin wall coming down" width="540px" /> Made possible in part by cheap oil... [Photo reproduced by Wikimedia Commons user Lear 21]
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> More manipulations took place as oil climbed relentlessly during the early 2000s. 
The geopolitical objectives had shifted: High oil prices would act as a brake on Chinese economic growth. And the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 would help make it happen. The law "would eventually turn the oil futures market from mainly a zero-sum risk-hedging and price-discovery vehicle into a quasi-securities market," wrote Mr. Norman.
"The price of oil is now less dependent on the actual supply and demand for 'wet' barrels than on the huge sums of money pouring into NYMEX futures from the pension and other investment funds, tacitly enabled and encouraged by U.S. regulators. Daily oil volumes on the NYMEX now dwarf global physical oil consumption."
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> A decade ago, there were as many as 100 "paper barrels" of oil trading for each barrel of the real thing. Today that figure might well be much higher.
"The volumes are far, far out of whack with any reasonable need to hedge physical supply/demand risk," Norman told me during a 2013 interview. "The amount of funds needed to dramatically influence crude prices would be 'chump change' compared with the sums needed in the debt and equity markets."
So what&rsquo;s next? Clearly the objective now is not to achieve leverage against a geopolitical rival. It&rsquo;s simply to craft a perception that it&rsquo;s no big deal to lose over 10% of global oil production in one fell swoop.
Back to Jim Rickards: &ldquo;Financial markets will adjust to the physical reality soon, but not right away.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s owing to how the physical oil market works. It takes a long time for oil tankers to move around the world. The final tankers that departed the Strait of Hormuz before the war started on Feb. 28? They&rsquo;re arriving at their destinations in Australia and Malaysia today, April 20.
So&hellip; as long as the June oil futures price is, say $100, why would you pay $140 for a real barrel today when you won&rsquo;t get delivery of that barrel until June anyway?
Unless and until the &ldquo;two&ndash;three week&rdquo; narrative breaks apart, the disconnect will go on.
We&rsquo;ll do our best here to keep track of real-world prices &mdash; and real world impact.
➢ Random notes about that real-world impact: The European Commission is recommending that Europeans revert to their 2020&ndash;21 work-from-home habits when possible. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the loss of aluminum exports from the Gulf region is forcing companies like Toyota to cut back on production.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Somebody Knew Something&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And then there was the sketchy-looking trading that took place before all the news broke on Friday.
&ldquo;Investors placed a bet worth about $760 million on a falling oil price around 20 minutes before Iran's foreign minister announced on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz was open,&rdquo; reports the Reuters newswire &mdash; &ldquo;another sizeable wager on the world's most traded commodity ahead of major announcements in the course of the Middle East war.&rdquo;
Supposedly the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is looking into suspicious oil futures trades that took place earlier on March 23 and April 7. We&rsquo;re not holding our breath.
Checking the paper price for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, it&rsquo;s up 5.2% as we write, back over $88.
The stock market sell-off today? Nothing major: At 7,094 the S&amp;P 500 is down less than a half percent from Friday&rsquo;s record close. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s losses are steeper, the Dow&rsquo;s narrower.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Even as the S&amp;P has been grinding to new all-time highs, the sentiment picture has been deeply bearish,&rdquo; says Zach Scheidt, editor of The Income Alliance and analyst for several other Paradigm publications.
Zach is looking at the Bull/Bear Spread published by the American Association of Individual Investors &mdash; a measure of how retail investors feel about where the market is heading.
This figure &ldquo;actually turned more negative last week even as stocks made new records,&rdquo; says Zach. &ldquo;Nearly half of individual investors still believe the market will be lower six months from now.
&ldquo;This is the kind of wall-of-worry setup that fuels sustained rallies. When the crowd is bearish and prices are rising, it means someone else is doing the buying.&rdquo;
This lines up neatly with Jim Rickards&rsquo; observation above: Don&rsquo;t expect markets to adjust to the realities of physical oil shortages just yet.
Which is what will make earnings season so interesting in the next couple of weeks.
Companies are likely to report rising earnings &mdash; but what will their guidance be for the rest of the year? If it&rsquo;s cautious, the reaction could be swift and severe.
Note well: The rise in the S&amp;P 500 lately has been driven by outsized gains in the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; companies. Five of them report their numbers next week &mdash; Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The market for non-dollar assets is a mixed bag as the new week begins.
At last check, gold has inched back below $4,800 and silver is under $80 again. Bitcoin hovers just under $75,000 and Ethereum a little below $2,300.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Editors out and About
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Beautiful morning at Kennedy Space Center,&rdquo; said a note on Paradigm&rsquo;s internal e-chat yesterday from our tech-investing specialist Ray Blanco.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/KxBMdF9EAMTKDZ9H3b2Wg/85cb6fbc041bc5f83a6ad46953386ccb/FMF-Issue-042026_4_.jpg" alt="Beautiful Morning view of Kennedy Space Center" width="540px" /> The view at T-minus 4 minutes [Ray Blanco photo]
Ray was on hand as Jeff Bezos&rsquo; Blue Origin firm launched a satellite owned by AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) &mdash; a satellite that&rsquo;s key to the company&rsquo;s ambitions to deliver wireless service via the mobile phone you already have in your pocket.
Unfortunately, while liftoff was flawless, the mission was not. It was the first time Blue Origin successfully reused one of its New Glenn rockets. But the rocket&rsquo;s upper stage dropped off the satellite at the wrong destination &mdash; or as an ASTS statement put it, an orbit &ldquo;lower than planned.&rdquo;
Indeed, the orbit is too low for the satellite to be functional &mdash; and there&rsquo;s no way to push the satellite where it needs to go.
The company says it has insurance to cover eventualities like this, but ASTS shares are down 9% today.
Ray&rsquo;s conviction in the company, however, remains strong: The company has launch contracts with space firms other than Blue Origin. It still expects to launch 45 of these satellites by year-end &mdash; although with this mishap that&rsquo;s down now from the initial goal of 60.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The defense sector is showing its stuff this week at the Sea-Air-Space conference near Washington, D.C. &mdash; and our Byron King is on hand.
In addition to his energy-and-mining cred, Byron has a 30-year background as a Navy flight officer and former staffer with the Chief of Naval Operations.
&ldquo;From the outside looking in, it's hard to know what's happening. Which is why I'm here on the inside, looking around,&rdquo; he tells us.
Among the things he&rsquo;s seen: &ldquo;Huntington Ingalls (HII) has a beautiful model of a Ford-class aircraft carrier at its exhibit space. And look at what's sitting on the No. 3 catapult... an MQ-25 &lsquo;Stingray&rsquo; drone, built by Boeing (BA).&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7sz1AVmP3VNMKbRa6azMmC/be4411c885e3e4cd18711e4414623dc7/FMF-Issue-042026_5_.jpg" alt="Beautiful Model Of Ford Carrier" width="540px" /> Scaled down for conference-floor presentation, not actual size [Byron King photo]
&ldquo;No pilot: just electronics that can work under AI, or accept external control and be part of a flying package. If it looks &lsquo;stealthy,&rsquo; that's because it is kinda stealthy; great design. Inside this bird are fuel tanks that can carry about 15,000 pounds of JP-5 jet juice, to transfer inflight to accompanying F/A-18s, F-35s, E-2s and more. Then it returns to the ship and lands automatically.
&ldquo;By using a dedicated tanker drone, the Navy saves wear and tear on F/A-18s, which have long been tasked with that role. But now, planners can utilize those F/A-18s for other missions.&rdquo;
Byron is posting regularly from the conference to the Paradigm mobile app. If you haven&rsquo;t downloaded it yet, it&rsquo;s a great source for exclusive app-only content &mdash; as well as the easiest way to keep up with the buy and sell alerts from your paid subscriptions. (No sifting through email!) <a href="https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/PPG-App/">Download here</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />And Finally&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> No comic relief today &mdash; just a reminder of what happened 251 years ago yesterday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2Msufq3IiZCGpJsIixLrBa/bf2b72f66a7813c04d7abc0a8f6ff8da/FMF-Issue-042026_6_.jpg" alt="Memorial 1775" width="540px" />

FMF-Issue-042026(Featured)

The CIA and the Oil Price

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Strait Is Open! (Maybe, Sort Of)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For once, it&rsquo;s someone other than Donald Trump issuing a market-moving tweet. 
Specifically, the Iranian foreign minister&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4KX3QptU1TT7zmgFsZVTkA/b20b22585110782a3e30fa99c518291a/FMF-Issue-041626-1.png" alt="Iranian foreign minister" width="540px" />
That was at 8:45 a.m. EDT. The reaction in the &ldquo;paper price&rdquo; of oil was immediate &mdash; futures on West Texas Intermediate crude sinking more than 13% to $82.21, a five-week low.
And then the U.S. president weighed in&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3SWJvHZk166XrUw9RFk626/7e350456a87d8e0849701d4bf41592ae/FMF-Issue-041626-2.png" alt="Trump Tweet" width="540px" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> To the extent that it&rsquo;s possible to take a step back amid fast-moving developments like these, let&rsquo;s do so.
In the first place, no one in Tehran has ever said the Strait of Hormuz was &ldquo;closed.&rdquo; On March 22, the foreign minister himself said the strait is &ldquo;not closed. Ships hesitate because insurers fear the war&hellip;&rdquo;
The Iranian government enforced a selective blockade &mdash; with the implicit threat that ships attempting to transit the strait without permission would be destroyed.
Before Washington and Tel Aviv launched their war on Tehran Feb. 28, about 120 ships passed through the strait each day. Since then that number has been slashed by 90%.
Let&rsquo;s see what the numbers are this weekend.
Besides, the terms of this &ldquo;reopening&rdquo; seem open to interpretation. As you see above, Tehran says it hinges on a 10-day cease-fire in Lebanon sticking&hellip; but Donald Trump says, &ldquo;This deal is not tied, in any way, to Lebanon.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But let&rsquo;s assume the best and that peace is, as they say, &ldquo;at hand.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s still a problem that colleague Sean Ring spotlighted Monday in The Rude Awakening. &ldquo;Even if The Donald announced a ceasefire tonight, the spigots don't just reopen.
&ldquo;Shut-in wells don't restart cleanly, due to reservoir pressure problems, viscosity issues or damaged infrastructure. LNG liquefaction plants can't simply be switched back on. They cool gases to hundreds of degrees below zero through enormously complex systems. Just flick a switch? Doesn&rsquo;t happen.
&ldquo;And then there's insurance. Lloyd&rsquo;s of London is an intelligence operation that also writes shipping insurance policies. When the bombs dropped, the policies vanished. Every single ship, cargo and crew needs its own bespoke coverage review before they move. Thousands of vessels. No AI shortcut. No batch processing. And no American company is taking its place.
&ldquo;Someone has to be the first tanker captain through the strait after the ceasefire.&rdquo;
Again, let&rsquo;s see how many tankers transit the strait this weekend.
OK, more about the market reaction next&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Euphoria
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As you might expect, sinking oil prices translate to soaring stock prices.
The S&amp;P 500 is on track to end the week at record levels &mdash; up 1.25% as we write to 7,129. The Nasdaq is likewise in record territory, up 1.5% and approaching 24,500. The Dow is up strongest &mdash; a little over 2% &mdash; but it still has work to do to reach a record.
Gold sits at a five-week high of $4,869. And the crypto rally is getting a head of steam &mdash; Bitcoin approaching $78,000 and Ethereum at $2,444.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Don&rsquo;t count out silver yet.
For a sixth year running, silver demand will outstrip silver supply &mdash; according to a new survey commissioned by the Silver Institute.
Supply remains steady &mdash; but it can&rsquo;t keep up with rising demand.
Interestingly, the survey suggests that industrial demand for silver will drop 3% this year. It seems the high price of silver is prodding the makers of solar panels to start looking for silver substitutes.
But investment demand is only getting stronger. &ldquo;You could see losses in the industrial sectors being mopped up by the retail investment,&rdquo; says Philip Newman of the British research firm Metals Focus, which conducted the survey. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not out of the realms of impossibility,&rdquo; he tells Kitco News.
Demand for coins and bars is forecast to rise 18% this year to its highest level since 2022. India is a source of growing demand because while silver isn&rsquo;t as cheap as it once was, it&rsquo;s still a lot cheaper than gold.
Meanwhile, demand for silver via ETFs and similar products remains robust.
Checking our screens, silver&rsquo;s rallying much harder than gold today &mdash; up over four bucks to $82.65. That&rsquo;s nowhere near the hyperbolic $120 highs of late January &mdash; but by the same token, an ounce of silver a year ago at this time was only $32.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />A Satellite Phone for Everyone
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;A flying cell tower,&rdquo; is what our tech-investing specialist Ray Blanco calls it. And he&rsquo;ll be on hand as it&rsquo;s launched into orbit this weekend.
&ldquo;At 6:45 a.m. EDT Sunday, Blue Origin's New Glenn-3 is scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral carrying a single payload: BlueBird 7.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s a satellite developed by AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) &mdash; &ldquo;the world's first and only direct-to-cell space broadband company,&rdquo; Ray says.
&ldquo;BlueBird 7 isn't just another satellite. It carries the largest communications array ever deployed to low Earth orbit &mdash; a phased-array antenna spanning roughly 2,400 square feet.&rdquo;
So yes, a flying cell tower &mdash; &ldquo;engineered to connect directly to the unmodified smartphone already in your pocket,&rdquo; Ray says. &ldquo;No dish. No &lsquo;satellite mode.&rsquo; Just 120-plus Mbps of broadband from space to your regular iPhone or Android.&rdquo;
As Ray said in this space last month, ASTS hopes to have as many as 60 of these satellites in orbit by year-end.
&ldquo;As a shareholder, I was invited to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Center alongside other qualified holders. I'll be on the 4:15 a.m. bus with my kids &mdash; who, for the record, are more excited about the rocket than the ticker!&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ll hear from Ray post-launch on Monday&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<a id="5"></a>
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And now a guffaw that has nothing to do with war or the cost of living&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/32WT33knkr51vTRLSlmxzl/451d92d222871d92fe1049df951ed286/FMF-Issue-041626-3.png" alt="Comic Relief back to the future" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Vitriol
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The following email landed in our inbox after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trumps-next-tax-cut">yesterday&rsquo;s edition&hellip;</a>
&ldquo;OK, I thought you were reasonable, economically oriented professionals that weren't beholden to the stupid, immoral fraud we unfortunately have as our president. And I thought you might have a unique and interesting take on our economic framework.
&ldquo;But now it's clear where your political ideals lie and it's with the anti-democratic movement under the spell of a fascist from New York.
&ldquo;I will never donate another dollar to your cause. Count me out!&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> From the other side of the political divide, the following email also landed in our inbox after yesterday&rsquo;s edition&hellip;
&ldquo;I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the previously veiled commentary I noticed, which you started about a year ago. This is not why I&rsquo;ve paid nearly $1,000 a year.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m deeply disappointed, and your recent inappropriate, unprofessional and juvenile response to one of the letters yesterday proves that you just can't keep your personal political views separate.
&ldquo;Deep personal introspection and maybe professional assistance are in order. I may need to stop reading your 5 Bullets, which I found to be the least helpful of all the material I&rsquo;ve considered over the past year from Paradigm Press. It makes me sad, but life goes on &mdash; things change.&rdquo;
First, this is a good time to reiterate that this e-letter is a free benefit stacked on top of your paid subscription.
But beyond that&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> During the 2024 election campaign the atmosphere in this country became so heated that for a little while I implemented a policy: I would refrain from addressing any topic that entailed bashing a single presidential or vice presidential candidate.
I implemented the policy after I <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/in-defense-of-childless-cat-ladies">tried</a> to address serious economic issues playing off a remark JD Vance made about &ldquo;childless cat ladies&rdquo; &mdash; and the reaction <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/worse-than-a-crash#5">went off the rails</a>.
If the atmosphere in the summer of 2024 was heated, the atmosphere in the spring of 2026 is toxic. But since it&rsquo;s not a presidential election year, I&rsquo;m not altogether sure what policy I can implement now to lower the temperature.
Mercifully, the weekend is upon us. Without deadline pressure, maybe I&rsquo;ll come up with something. And maybe cooler heads can prevail soon&hellip;

FMF-Issue-041626-Featured

The Strait Is Open! (Maybe, Sort Of)

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Trump&rsquo;s Next Tax Cut
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Even before the Iran war propelled energy prices higher, the buzzword of the 2026 midterm elections was shaping up to be &ldquo;affordability.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s the label Democrats hope to tag on Donald Trump.
They can&rsquo;t very well use the word &ldquo;inflation&rdquo; &mdash; because that&rsquo;s the label Joe Biden and Kamala Harris got tagged with in 2024.
But whatever label you want to use, or whoever you want to blame, it&rsquo;s the defining economic issue of the decade. The incumbent president, whoever it is, must grapple with it every two years if his party is going to have a prayer of competing.
In the last round of midterms four years ago, the biggest stunt Joe Biden pulled was to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve &mdash; at rates unprecedented in the SPR&rsquo;s history.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5CnRcDE3H48Gj0qBcEZnCO/a250f9343281fc8801092ef08398c3dd/5Bullets_SPRchart_0416.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The Biden Bleed&rdquo; helped bring gasoline prices down from $5.10 a gallon in June to $3.88 by Election Day. It still wasn&rsquo;t enough to prevent Republicans from taking narrow control of the House.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> So what can Donald Trump do &mdash; with the national average gas price this morning of $4.09?
His administration has already pledged to draw 172 million barrels from the SPR &mdash; an amount that would bring the SPR&rsquo;s level down to where it is on the very left of that chart.
But this time that won&rsquo;t be enough to move the needle on fuel prices.
The supply shock from the Iran war is more severe than from the Russia-Ukraine war. Then, oil was simply rerouted from one place to another to bypass Western sanctions. Now it&rsquo;s bottled up inside the Strait of Hormuz with nowhere to go.
The president himself acknowledged on Sunday that by autumn, gas prices &ldquo;should be around the same.&rdquo;
So what else can he do?
The question here today isn&rsquo;t what should he do. It&rsquo;s what we can reasonably expect him to do under the circumstances. And the circumstances require him to do something big and splashy that everyday Americans would give him credit for. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Something Big
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The &ldquo;something big&rdquo; that most readily comes to mind can be captured in three words: Payroll tax holiday.
The proposition here is simple: Lift the 6.2% withholding tax on Social Security and the 1.45% withholding tax on Medicare. Do it for maybe nine months. Six is too short and too obviously an election ploy. Twelve is too long and makes it look as if an unpopular war will be dragged out indefinitely. Nine is just right.
The feds would still collect the employer portion of payroll tax. The idea would be to create the appearance of an instant pay raise for every W2 employee in the land.
Trump and congressional Republicans could frame it as a gift to the American people for the nation&rsquo;s 250th birthday. And of course they&rsquo;d pass it sometime in late spring or early summer &mdash; just in time to make that Fourth of July trip a little more affordable.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The impact would be felt most among the working class and the poor &mdash; the bottom 50% of Americans who don&rsquo;t own homes or stocks.
After all, payroll taxes apply to wage income &mdash; the sole source of income for most of the bottom 50%. Wealthier households collect income from more diverse sources &mdash; interest, dividends, capital gains, business profits. What&rsquo;s more, Social Security tax isn&rsquo;t collected on wage income exceeding $184,500. (The figure rises with inflation each year.)
There&rsquo;s precedent here: The Obama administration and a Democratic Congress trimmed the employee portion of Social Security tax from 6.2% to 4.2% in 2011&ndash;12. And during the early days of COVID in 2020 there was chatter inside the Beltway about a full payroll tax holiday through year-end 2020 &mdash; although nothing came of it.
Would a payroll tax holiday drain the Social Security and Medicare trust funds &mdash; at a time when both funds are already on track to be emptied by 2032&ndash;33? Of course it would. Democrats would object on those grounds &mdash; even though they&rsquo;d resort to the same tactic if they were in charge.
Fiscal-hawk Republicans would object on the same grounds &mdash; but in an election year and under pressure from the White House, they&rsquo;d go along to get along.
Again, the question today isn&rsquo;t whether it&rsquo;s wise or foolish policy. The question is what&rsquo;s most likely to happen when &ldquo;affordability&rdquo; is the buzzword and the election math doesn&rsquo;t look too good for the Republicans.
If it happens, you heard it here first&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Manipulation, She Wrote
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Even mainstream analysts are catching onto the disconnect between the price of oil futures and the price of actual barrels for delivery.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4G7YGpbiP8Mr4SENHxDMyK/e0f3db906f5affc7e628a6d66d22b043/FMF-Issue-041626_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Manipulation&rdquo; is a strong word for someone who used to work for the Reuters newswire. But these days she works for the giant trade-data firm Kpler. It&rsquo;s her business to know the price of real-world barrels that help move goods across continents and oceans.
And as we&rsquo;ve been chronicling for weeks now, that real-world price is substantially higher than &ldquo;paper oil.&rdquo;
Brent crude futures &mdash; the global benchmark reflecting North Sea oil &mdash; trade for under $100. But actual &ldquo;Forties&rdquo; crude brought up from under the North Sea traded this week for a record $148.
Little wonder that real-world oil is so costly when Kpler&rsquo;s data reveals that exports from the OPEC+ nations have collapsed.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/65DEVid3Mky1ZLssq8wzoP/d777f36541742fa658b3cbb15eddc320/FMF-Issue-041626_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate futures are up 2.5% as we write to $93.60. How long can the disconnect last?
Well, as we mentioned two days ago, a huge confluence of events is about to hit next Monday and Tuesday&hellip;
<ul>
<li>The last oil tankers that departed the Strait of Hormuz before the war began will reach their destinations in Malaysia and Australia</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>May oil futures traded in New York expire on Tuesday</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush is set to arrive in the region &mdash; just as the two-week ceasefire is scheduled to expire Tuesday.</li>
</ul>
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the meantime, the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq are reaching even higher into record territory.
Both indexes set record closes yesterday. Both are up about a quarter percent at last check today &mdash; the S&amp;P at 7,040 and the Nasdaq over 24,000. But at 48,547 the Dow still has work to do to regain the 50,000 mark that ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi was crowing about.
Precious metals look quiet &mdash; gold just over $4,800 and silver a few pennies below $79. Crypto is consolidating, Bitcoin just over $74,000 and Ethereum over $2,300.
The big economic number of the day is industrial production &mdash; down 0.5% in March, in contrast with the typical Wall Street economist&rsquo;s expectation for a 0.1% bump higher.
Some of that can be chalked up to milder weather &mdash; energy/mining production and utility production both fell. But manufacturing also contracted.
All told, 75.7% of the nation&rsquo;s industrial capacity was in use during March &mdash; the weakest in four months.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The vibe in the meme-o-sphere is shifting rapidly from unaffordable housing to&hellip; the end times.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1MHfbotC5NcDN006ZVOzaR/db8f51e0c00141ae18daff9f7406b768/FMF-Issue-041626_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />After Yesterday&rsquo;s Mailbag&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Great retort, couldn&rsquo;t agree more with you,&rdquo; a reader writes after your editor took more slings and arrows in the mailbag during <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/just-because-the-war-escalates">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;I feel our country has advanced enough from the Founding Fathers to do away with our political representatives &mdash; they serve not the constituents, but only their own interests. They are owned by special interests, big corporations, big pharmaceutical companies, etc.
&ldquo;Surely our society with today&rsquo;s technology and instant communications can come up with a solution without the control of the deep state. At the very least, we shouldn&rsquo;t allow attorneys to become politicians &mdash; it&rsquo;s like putting the wolves in charge of guarding the henhouse.
&ldquo;Love your services.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Hey Dave, time to counteract some of the other feedback you've been getting,&rdquo; writes another.
&ldquo;I love it when you agree with my outlook, but I love it even more when you point out something I didn't know, even if I disagree with it.
&ldquo;So please keep running your mouth.
&ldquo;(Except perhaps stay quiet regarding your immediate environs.)&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thanks to the readers rising to my defense after the recent incoming fire &mdash; which has not ceased.
&ldquo;Gonigam, why do you believe you have the answers for all?&rdquo; says one. &ldquo;Don't you have any common sense, that any bashing of a sitting president at time of war is helpful to the enemy?&rdquo;
I have a feeling this individual had no issues bashing Bill Clinton during his promiscuous warmaking in the &rsquo;90s, or bashing Barack Obama while he bombed even more countries than Dubya Bush did.
And no, I don&rsquo;t have all the answers. I have no idea at all how to order the affairs of other people&rsquo;s countries &mdash; which is why regime change and similar efforts are such an awful idea.
Yesterday during a congressional hearing, White House budget director Russell Vought told Congress he was unable to come up with a cost estimate for the Iran war. Vought was reminded the Pentagon <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/elon-vs-the-pentagon">has never passed an audit</a>.
&ldquo;There is so much arrogance in that agency,&rdquo; said Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisconsin). &ldquo;They just say &zwnj;we don&rsquo;t have to do it on audit. We&rsquo;re so damn important. We don&rsquo;t care what Congress thinks.&rdquo;
We await the economic consequences&hellip; and we&rsquo;ll anticipate and chronicle them here, ahead of the mainstream.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Do you have a citation for the George H. Smith observation on Hamilton?&rdquo; a reader inquires after yesterday&rsquo;s mailbag.
&ldquo;Thanks for all your work,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;and to heck with the don&rsquo;t-talk-about-politics people. Everything unfortunately flows through that sewer and we have to navigate it like a Ferengi on the Great Material River (OK, really obscure reference but it fits).&rdquo;
Dave: Sadly, nothing in print. I recall Smith&rsquo;s quip from an excellent lecture series he did titled An Overview Of American History: From the Revolution to the Progressive Era. It was distributed on audiocassette by the gone-but-not-forgotten Laissez Faire Books.
Unlike a lot of spoken-word content from the &rsquo;80s and 90s, it doesn&rsquo;t appear to be on YouTube. I do have mp3s in my possession that I copied from the cassettes long ago. I might be the only one!

FMF-Issue-041626(Featured)

Trump’s Next Tax Cut

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Just Because the War Escalates&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On the one hand, the president says the Iran war is &ldquo;very close to over.&rdquo; 
On the other hand, he said something similar over a month ago: &ldquo;I think the war is very complete, pretty much.&rdquo;
Then and now, the words are market-moving. Yesterday the S&amp;P 500 closed within a few points of its all-time high&hellip; and oil futures sank to their lowest all month.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s tempting to dismiss the latest market reaction as &ldquo;hopium&rdquo; or maybe as normalcy bias. But doing so might be hazardous to your wealth.
Assume that the war in fact escalates. That&rsquo;s a sensible assumption given that more U.S. troops and ships and planes are headed toward the Middle East.
&ldquo;Most people assume that any escalation in this situation automatically means higher oil prices,&rdquo; says Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the knee-jerk reaction.
&ldquo;But markets aren&rsquo;t just reactive. They&rsquo;re also anticipatory.&rdquo;
And what he sees the market anticipating right now is &ldquo;a temporary disruption, followed by a decisive response&rdquo; by the U.S. military that reopens the Strait of Hormuz.
Exactly what that response looks like is impossible to tease out right now. The point is that as Enrique sees it, the market is not writing off the fact that more U.S. forces are headed toward the Gulf region.
Rather, the market is anticipating that those forces will compel a resolution, and soon &mdash; &ldquo;restoring flow and removing the threat.
&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s the case, oil prices may not spike nearly as much as people expect.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;In fact, the bigger move could come after the situation stabilizes,&rdquo; Enrique continues. That is, oil moving to the downside.
&ldquo;Because once the choke point is clearly broken, risk premiums evaporate. Supply expectations normalize. And prices can move sharply in the opposite direction.
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the kind of setup that catches people off guard. Not because the outcome is surprising, but because the timing is.&rdquo;
Bottom line: &ldquo;The market has experienced volatile periods before and thrived on the other side &mdash; sometimes much sooner than anybody expects,&rdquo; Enrique says.
If he&rsquo;s right here&hellip; and escalation yields a quick resolution&hellip; the stock market is in for a face-ripping rally.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> A final point before we move on &mdash; about how our editors don&rsquo;t always agree.
We&rsquo;ve said it before, but that&rsquo;s by design.
We&rsquo;ve never enforced a &ldquo;company line&rdquo; around here. We want our editors to speak freely. You paid good money for your subscription(s) and you deserve nothing less than the unvarnished truth as the editors see it.
In the present instance, you might be aware that Jim Rickards believes this war is nowhere near over and there&rsquo;s a high likelihood for a grueling bear market.
When opinions come into conflict, we respect your intelligence enough to evaluate them and decide what rings true for you.
Agree or disagree, as long as our editors exercise a well-thought-out paradigm &mdash; a model of how the economy and the markets work &mdash; they have a place on our team.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Will Trump Fire Powell?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For once, the big business-news headline of the day has nothing to do with the war.
Donald Trump says he&rsquo;ll fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell if Powell stays on the job after his term is up on May 15.
Which is a distinct possibility. A new chair might not be in place at that time.
Recall that Trump has nominated former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as Powell&rsquo;s successor. Senate hearings are set for next Tuesday&hellip;
But Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) promises to hold up any Fed nomination as long as the Justice Department continues investigating the renovation of the Fed&rsquo;s headquarters. At issue in the investigation: Did Powell lie to Congress when he said the renovation plans are not as lavish as reported by the New York Post?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On occasion the market reacts to stories like these by selling off because of a perceived threat to the Fed&rsquo;s &ldquo;independence.&rdquo; Today is not one of those occasions.
At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is up another third of a percent to 6,989. If that holds at day&rsquo;s end, it will be a record high. The Nasdaq is up a solid three-quarters of a percent (though it still has work to do to reach a record) while the Dow is in the red.
The big mover today is Allbirds (BIRD) &mdash; up 700% as the company says it will pivot from the business of selling &ldquo;sustainable&rdquo; athletic shoes into the business of leasing AI computer hardware.
On the one hand, this is the sort of silliness companies engaged in amid the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. On the other hand, as John Maynard Keynes said, &ldquo;The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.&rdquo;
Elsewhere, precious metals are pulling back &mdash; gold clinging to the $4,800 level and silver just over $79. Crypto is holding onto its weekend gains with Bitcoin just under $74,000 and Ethereum at $2,341.
Crude is little changed after yesterday&rsquo;s sell-off, now $91.78.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Fertilizer Update
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> If the war ends today, it doesn&rsquo;t stop the looming fertilizer crisis facing U.S. farmers and our food supply.
Nearly half the world&rsquo;s exports of urea depend on the Strait of Hormuz to reach their destination. Like oil, urea is a global market.
&ldquo;The price of [dry urea] in January to February was $560 per ton,&rdquo; North Dakota farmer Ben Vig tells the Responsible Statecraft site. &ldquo;At the end of March it was $770 per ton.&rdquo;
About a quarter of U.S. fertilizer supply is produced outside the country. And even the stuff made domestically relies on imports of ingredients like potash, phosphate and nitrogen.
Even if the strait reopens immediately, production facilities can&rsquo;t be restarted with a flip of the switch. And supply chains take time to unscramble.
&ldquo;To get product from around the world,&rdquo; says Vig, &ldquo;we have to put the order in, and once we put the order in, it takes four weeks for a cargo ship to go from one side of the planet to another, and then it all goes to [an import hub in] New Orleans, and it takes three&ndash;four weeks from a cargo ship to a barge, and then the barge up the river.
&ldquo;So we&rsquo;re looking at maybe a seven-week period.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;An overwhelming majority of America&rsquo;s farmers who responded to a nationwide survey say they cannot afford to purchase enough fertilizer to get them through the year.&rdquo;
So says the American Farm Bureau Federation &mdash; which surveyed 5,700 farmers between April 3&ndash;11. Fully 70% of respondents say fertilizer is so costly they won&rsquo;t be able to buy all that they need.
Even in the Midwestern grain belt, only two-thirds of farmers pre-booked fertilizer purchases in advance of planting season. In the rest of the country, it&rsquo;s one third or less. Here&rsquo;s a map the Farm Bureau posted on social media&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3V7Xt3ASA35KUQ0H35V3eR/e282bdf01aa7b078202d3ec6adabffdc/FMF-Issue-041526_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
So now comes the squeeze: &ldquo;Without the necessary fertilizers, we&rsquo;ll face lower yields and some farmers will reduce acres altogether, which will impact food and feed supplies,&rdquo; says Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Financial Privacy Update
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The White House is barreling ahead with plans to compromise your financial privacy in the name of cracking down on illegal migrants.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/your-bank-wants-your-passport">We gave you a heads-up</a> about this at the end of February &mdash; new requirements for banks to collect citizenship information from their customers.
Upshot: You might have to present a passport or birth certificate just to keep your current bank account, much less open a new one.
This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says an executive order is still in the works.
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s unreasonable,&rdquo; he tells the Semafor site. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t we have information on who&rsquo;s in our banking system?&rdquo;
Answer: Because the &ldquo;land of the free&rdquo; has already gone too far down the road of &ldquo;show me your papers.&rdquo;
Also: Because that &ldquo;information&rdquo; will in time be weaponized against citizens and legal residents, either by this administration or a future Democratic administration.
Curbing illegal migration is just the excuse for the feds to impose new and more intrusive levels of financial surveillance&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: DoorDash Grandmas, Trusting the Plan, Duels
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Love your work. Just wanted to pass along that the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/inflations-choking-your-retirement">DoorDash at the White House</a> was a plant and shameless plug for a temporary tax benefit,&rdquo; a reader writes.
&ldquo;That lady has appeared in Nevada and Missouri, claiming to be a resident there, but now lives in Arkansas. That was a long delivery. With gas over $4.00, she would need to spend most of that $100 on gas.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Yeah, I didn&rsquo;t get into the details of the photo-op. It would have gotten too far afield from the central point of yesterday&rsquo;s Bullet No. 1.
But yes, the event was even more staged than it appeared on the surface &mdash; with active participation from DoorDash, whose PR rep spent much of yesterday on social media defending the stunt&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1dSX5EQVLHGkFytsse9Kew/09e82e867a7ee5393e594af6aa78668a/FMF-Issue-041526_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Anyway, something is deeply wrong when &ldquo;DoorDash Grandma&rdquo; is a thing and politicians think it&rsquo;s something they should lean into&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;I had no idea that writers at Paradigm are taking free speech to the N-th degree,&rdquo; a reader writes.
&ldquo;You have no idea what the classified reasons are for our president to make difficult decisions. Neither does Tucker or Megyn.
&ldquo;For all the &lsquo;writers&rsquo; at Paradigm, it would serve you best to stop making comments regarding delicate geopolitical events that involve our USA. You realize that even our enemies are reading your comments.
&ldquo;Simply state the facts from our secretary of state, President Trump, secretary of war and Gen. Caine.
&ldquo;None of you has the facts, especially mainstream media.
&ldquo;Report on our economy, equities you recommended, financial systems, commodities, precious metals and how major averages are affected.
&ldquo;Otherwise, I recommend that you stay out of making political commentary, because that is not the reason I paid for Rickards.
&ldquo;May God bless our great USA and President Trump.&rdquo;
Dave responds: To be clear, this e-letter is a free benefit on top of your paid subscription.
Anyway&hellip; Your case comes down to Trust the experts.
How did trust the experts work out when we were told Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction?
How did trust the experts work out when we were told the trouble with subprime mortgages was under control and wouldn&rsquo;t collapse the economy?
How did trust the experts work out when we were ordered to stay home to save Grandma from a virus?
Oh but Trump is different somehow? Maybe in temperament. But like Dick Cheney and Ben Bernanke and Anthony Fauci, he&rsquo;s a fallible human being who&rsquo;s vulnerable to the temptations of political power.
Gentle reminder on the eve of our nation&rsquo;s 250th birthday: This country was founded by people who were deeply suspicious of political power and who tried to construct a system that would thwart it at every turn. In particular they sought to keep the warmaking power away from the executive branch.
It comes back to this editor&rsquo;s favorite Founders&rsquo; quote&hellip;
<blockquote>Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few&hellip; No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.</blockquote>
&mdash;James Madison, 1795
It&rsquo;s no coincidence that the income tax came into being just in time to raise funds for U.S. participation in World War I. And we&rsquo;re still stuck with it 113 years later.
Something to think about on this Tax Day, anyway&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> We&rsquo;ll try to wrap up today&rsquo;s mailbag on a lighter note&hellip;
&ldquo;The comment by one reader that you included yesterday (&lsquo;I'm pretty much done with politicians, not a single one of them is worth a s*** and what gives them the right to rule over me?&rsquo;) prompted me to share this as a possible solution:
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4sCgB9EHWOsVO4OFReHnR1/7d4534f31fcdbe4b509d79fd91c1cd36/FMF-Issue-041526_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Dave: I hear ya, but it&rsquo;s still an imperfect solution.
The late libertarian writer George H. Smith observed that by the time Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton during a duel in 1804, the damage was done: Hamilton had already strangled the great American experiment in its crib. And so it goes&hellip;

FMF-Issue-041526(Featured)

Just Because the War Escalates…

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />What&rsquo;s a &ldquo;DoorDash Grandma&rdquo;?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The president had a photo-op yesterday &mdash; getting a DoorDash delivery to spotlight the fact that tip income under the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; is no longer subject to income tax.
(Well, as long as your income stays under a certain threshold. And this tax break expires after 2028.)
Unfortunately for the White House media team, the message about &ldquo;no tax on tips&rdquo; got overshadowed on social media by bigger questions&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6lBWBSF9ONjG3rsNTFzyG3/b34824251d5b869a457a6f24837e6dda/FMF-Issue-041426_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Which leads to a more personal question&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Do you want to spend your &ldquo;golden years&rdquo; in the gig economy?
I dunno, maybe you do. I remember a guy who was well-compensated for decades as chief meteorologist on Chicago&rsquo;s top-rated TV station.
He retired to Naples, Florida in 2018 and became an Uber driver so he could stay busy and meet interesting people. The Chicago Sun-Times reported he earned $84.61 on his first day.
Point is, he didn&rsquo;t need the income. Driving an Uber was a choice.
Choices are good when it comes to retirement.
Unfortunately, your choices become more limited whenever the economy is subject to bouts of inflation &mdash; like, right now.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> If you&rsquo;re a newer reader, you need to wrap your mind around the fact that inflation will rule your life for the rest of the 2020s in a way it simply didn&rsquo;t during the 2010s.
And even if you&rsquo;ve been around for a while, I can&rsquo;t reinforce the research enough: Once inflation races past a certain threshold, it typically takes a decade to bring it back to &ldquo;normal.&rdquo;
The official U.S. inflation rate topped out in June 2022 at 9.0%. The most recent figure, issued by the Labor Department last Friday, is 3.3%. That&rsquo;s the highest in nearly two years, and next month&rsquo;s figure will almost surely be higher.
In 2022, researchers from Bank of America&rsquo;s U.K. division combed through extensive data going back decades from most of the globe&rsquo;s developed economies.
They found that once inflation pokes its nose over 5%, getting back to 2% &mdash; the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s official inflation target &mdash; takes an average of 10 years.
Let&rsquo;s take a closer look&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> We&rsquo;ve shown this chart before. As far as we&rsquo;re concerned, we can&rsquo;t show it often enough. Again, it will rule your life for the rest of this decade. 
This time we&rsquo;ll spotlight two instances from the United States&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6j3EIjLsOpdQUQE0bAVqMX/b4dbd85b7b511ed49939d52243d8eadc/FMF-Issue-041426_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Look at that gray bar on the right. Inflation peaked at a crazy-high 14.6% in the spring of 1980. It took six years for the Federal Reserve under chairman Paul Volcker to get inflation back to 2%. And he pulled that off only by deliberately engineering a vicious recession in 1981&ndash;82 &mdash; at that time, the worst recession since the Great Depression.
But then inflation reared its head again in the late &rsquo;80s &mdash; peaking at 6.4% in the fall of 1990. Look at the other gray bar. As you can see, it took the Alan Greenspan Fed a full eight years to get inflation back to 2%.
➢ Note well: This time around, the clock started in May 2021 &mdash; when the official inflation rate first touched 5%. We&rsquo;re not even five years into this thing.
Nor is this study unique. A separate 2022 study conducted by the firm Research Affiliates arrived at the same broad conclusion: &ldquo;Above 8% [inflation], reverting to 3% usually takes six&ndash;20 years, with a median of over 10 years.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s how inflation can wreck your retirement if you&rsquo;re not careful.
Say you&rsquo;re living off an income of $100,000 right now &mdash; and your cost of living rises 4% a year.
After 10 years, you&rsquo;ll need $148,000 in income just to maintain your current standard of living. After 20 years? $219,000. And after 25 years, you&rsquo;ll need $267,000.
How can you possibly keep up?
At Paradigm Press, we&rsquo;re especially fond of a proven income-producing strategy that&rsquo;s won the approval of both our macro authority Jim Rickards and our AI authority James Altucher.
We mentioned the recent performance of this strategy yesterday &mdash; generating a 105% gain during the first two months of 2026. That&rsquo;s despite an array of market-moving events from the panic in software stocks to the looming Iran war.
Join us Thursday in an event called The Insiders Suite and you&rsquo;ll learn how to put this strategy to work for yourself.
<a href="https://signups.paradigm-press.info/2519576">Confirm Your Seat for The Insiders Suite &mdash; Thursday April 16 at 11:00 a.m. EDT</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Has the Blockade Been Tested Yet?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> So&hellip; How serious is this U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, really?
The Wall Street Journal&rsquo;s front-page article today sheds zero light on the central question surrounding the war so far this week. It&rsquo;s long on rhetoric from both Washington and Tehran, short on the nuts and bolts about whether U.S. warships really are halting the flow of shipping that violates Washington&rsquo;s dictates.
Here&rsquo;s what we can piece together. Shipping data from the firm LSEG shows that a Chinese-owned tanker called the Rich Starry transited the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. The Rich Starry is subject to U.S. sanctions. An additional U.S.-sanctioned vessel also passed through the strait.
Meanwhile, a Panama-flagged ship called the Peace Gulf transited the strait today, headed toward the United Arab Emirates.
Does that mean the blockade is all for show and not for go? Not necessarily. &ldquo;As the three vessels transiting the strait were not heading to Iranian ports, they are not affected by the U.S. blockade,&rdquo; says Al Jazeera.
So that tells us either the blockade is effective &mdash; or it hasn&rsquo;t yet been put to the test.
A handful of foreign press outlets played up a statement attributed to the Chinese defense minister saying, &ldquo;Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of the Strait of Hormuz&hellip; Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us.&rdquo;
Strong words. But they don&rsquo;t turn up in Chinese state media &mdash; so for now we&rsquo;re giving it the side-eye.
And so we&rsquo;re still left with the question we were pondering yesterday: What happens when the U.S. Navy encounters a Chinese ship with a Chinese flag? Will U.S. forces try to board it and seize it?
Come to think of it, wouldn&rsquo;t that wreck plans for Donald Trump&rsquo;s meeting in Beijing next month with Chinese President Xi Jinping?
To be continued&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the meantime, the global oil supply crunch is about to get real. 
&ldquo;The last oil tankers to traverse the Strait of Hormuz before the outbreak of war will reach refineries in the coming days,&rdquo; says the Financial Times &mdash; &ldquo;in a pivotal moment analysts warn could herald physical shortages in Europe and the U.S. within weeks.&rdquo;
Yes, the United States. &ldquo;With Asian refineries responding by buying up a record number of crude oil cargoes that would normally have sailed to Europe and the U.S., analysts said refiners in some of the world&rsquo;s wealthiest countries may soon also face shortages.&rdquo;
The last ships that departed the strait before the war began are expected to arrive in Malaysia and Australia by next Monday, give or take.
So oil prices are leaping big-time right?
Yes and no. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />More Than One Oil Price
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The gap between the &ldquo;paper price&rdquo; of oil and real barrels for delivery remains yawningly wide.
There&rsquo;s continued chatter from the White House suggesting the prospect of some sort of resolution to the conflict despite the breakdown of U.S.-Iran talks on Saturday. As such, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate has sunk to $93.50 &mdash; down from nearly $105 when trading opened for a new week on Sunday night.
But those are just oil futures. Real barrels recovered from the North Sea went for $148.87 yesterday.
Gaps like that can&rsquo;t last forever &mdash; and something might be about to come to a head early next week.
As mentioned above, the last barrels that transited the Strait of Hormuz before the war began will reach their destination on Monday. Tuesday brings the expiration of May oil futures in New York. And that&rsquo;s also when another U.S. aircraft carrier will likely arrive in the Middle East.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3YVz0TGwM5GtZO2t6AINE/7e3a4ddf449680517ffc8ef70558dc46/FMF-Issue-041426_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Why is it taking the long way around the Cape of Good Hope? Because Navy commanders remember the hell delivered by Yemen&rsquo;s Houthi faction in 2024&ndash;25. They shot down nearly two dozen Reaper drones&hellip; while evasive maneuvers by the carrier USS Truman led to an F/A-18 jet sliding off the deck and into the drink.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the moment, however, the &ldquo;paper oil falling, stocks rising&rdquo; trade remains in force.
The S&amp;P 500 is up another 1% today. At 6,954 the index is now slightly higher than it was when the war began &mdash; and only a third of a percent below its record close on Jan. 27. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is more modest, while the Nasdaq is up 1.6%.
➢ Congratulations are in order for 10X Trade Club members &mdash; who yesterday booked their first 1,000%+ gain playing call options on Oracle. Another 10X winner might be in store by Friday with Microsoft.
Gold just pushed past $4,800 and silver has screamed past $79. And the crypto rally might be for real this time &mdash; Bitcoin over $75,000 and Ethereum at $2,368.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The euphoria on Wall Street stands in contrast to a dour mood on Main Street.
The National Federation of Independent Business is out with its monthly Small Business Optimism Index.
The headline number tumbled from 98.8 in February to 95.8 in March. The number is now back below its long-term average. (And we do mean long-term. The NFIB has conducted this survey since 1973.)
&ldquo;Inflation has caused significant hardship in rebalancing our budget,&rdquo; says the owner of a services business in Michigan. &ldquo;Sales are down, and customers are extremely price conscious,&rdquo; says the owner of an agriculture-oriented business in New Jersey.
&ldquo;The dramatic spike in oil prices has spooked consumers and owners alike,&rdquo; says NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg. &ldquo;Small business owners are having to absorb those higher input costs and pass them along to their customers.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Continuing with the theme(s) above&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4HuY7QUvXlV21CX5z31rcG/e75523084b9373c4b2c16b21f6696398/FMF-Issue-041426_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Kirk, Politicians and &ldquo;You Get What You Pay For&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;While none of us &lsquo;knows&rsquo; who killed Charlie Kirk,&rdquo; a reader adds to a recent thread, &ldquo;there is a pile of publicly available evidence that points to a disturbed fellow named Tyler Robinson. We&rsquo;ll see how the trial turns out.
&ldquo;More importantly, speaking for myself, I regret that he is being turned into a political football after his death. Though he had strong political opinions, to me his primary virtue was in his strong Christian belief system and fearless advocacy of those beliefs.
&ldquo;Thank you for allowing me to insert that perspective into the conversation.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thanks for writing what you do. You report what you see and it's up to us to draw conclusions,&rdquo; a reader writes after your editor took a few slings and arrows recently (including yesterday.)
&ldquo;Trump has lost a lot of us because of this war and overspending. His lack of transparency on the Epstein files didn't help either.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But his stupid attacks on Tucker and Megyn are just nuts. These people helped him get into the White House. Mark Levin was a Never Trumper.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I'm pretty much done with politicians, not a single one of them is worth a s*** and what gives them the right to rule over me?&rdquo;
Dave responds: The meme-o-sphere, as always, is on the case&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/71eV8Px9Y4XXQkjqQE9iwx/583d49b11b5016f9e9913e7089626684/FMF-Issue-041426_5_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Finally, a longtime reader responds to yesterday&rsquo;s sling and arrow &mdash; specifically the line about &ldquo;you are a stock analyst, and I am a paying client.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I know that it must be you getting old,&rdquo; the reader writes &mdash; &ldquo;but you forgot to remind said customer that 5 Bullets is a free benefit to all Paradigm subscribers.&rdquo;
Dave: So true. But I&rsquo;m going to attribute my oversight to the fact I&rsquo;ve been processing a tsunami of information since this stupid war began and not my advancing age!

FMF-Issue-041426(Featured)

Inflation’s Choking Your Retirement

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The &ldquo;Rest Easy&rdquo; Strategy
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Last night on social media, the president touted &ldquo;the Greatest Stock Market in History.&rdquo; To which one wag replied: &ldquo;For adrenaline junkies.&rdquo;
Whatever your opinion of Donald Trump or the stock market, there&rsquo;s no shortage of thrills-n-chills.
Here&rsquo;s a chart of the S&amp;P 500 since the start of Trump&rsquo;s second term&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/49hVBv4U1LeooFeyoIGfUh/64e5fba0204e9d875fb2102ca385e547/5Bullets_Chart_NoShortage_041326.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The big drop and recovery last year coincided with the &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; tariffs &mdash; and the subsequent delay/walkback of those tariffs.
More recently, just look at the market since the war started at the end of February: The S&amp;P sank from 6,879 to a low of 6,344 at the end of March &mdash; nearly an 8% drop in one month.
Then, amid hopes for a ceasefire, it roared up to 6,817 by last Friday &mdash; recovering the bulk of those losses in a week and a half.
When Trump threatened over the weekend to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, Dow futures took a 1.1% spill. But as we write this morning, amid a report that U.S.-Iran talks might resume, the Dow&rsquo;s loss has been trimmed to a half percent.
As is our habit lately, we&rsquo;ll get to the specifics of the war and the markets today in Bullet No. 2&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For now, let&rsquo;s keep the focus on that &ldquo;adrenaline.&rdquo;
Maybe adrenaline isn&rsquo;t your thing.
Maybe you&rsquo;re already in retirement &mdash; or at least you&rsquo;re thinking about what retirement will look like. And maybe what you want from the market, more than anything else, is steady, reliable income with which to meet your expenses.
And ideally, you want that income to grow &mdash; so you can keep up with a relentlessly rising cost of living. (Sadly, it&rsquo;s not the 2010s anymore.)
If that&rsquo;s you&hellip; then you want a strategy that&rsquo;s going to insulate you from the ups and downs of a market that seems to gyrate with each new presidential post on social media. Something to help you sleep at night while your friends and neighbors are wringing their hands.
In short, a &ldquo;rest easy&rdquo; strategy.
Not possible, you say?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> OK &mdash; take another glance at that chart of the S&amp;P. Notice how the market went essentially nowhere during the first two months of 2026.
And yet, during that time&hellip; amid a meltdown in software stocks, a sharp pullback in precious metals, the Supreme Court tariff ruling, and war drums beating ever louder&hellip; a fellow we call &ldquo;The Banker&rdquo; turned $100,000 into over $205,000.
Within our network, James Altucher knows him well &mdash; and knows he can deliver investment income &ldquo;that doesn&rsquo;t depend on a paycheck, a pension or a politician.&rdquo;
Jim Rickards also knows him well &mdash; and knows the value his strategy offers at a time like this. &ldquo;He generates extra income directly from the market. Real cash. Regardless of what the market is doing.&rdquo;
Together, they&rsquo;ll introduce you to The Banker during a special streaming event we&rsquo;re calling The Insiders Suite. It&rsquo;s set for this coming Thursday at 11:00 a.m. EDT. No cost to attend &mdash; all you have to do is confirm your seat, and we&rsquo;ll see you there.
<a href="https://signups.paradigm-press.info/2519194">Confirm Your Seat to Meet The Banker</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The War and the Markets: Day 45
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Markets are rallying on ceasefire headlines and the hope that the US-Iran war is ending, but the price action is running well ahead of the fundamentals,&rdquo; says a research note from MUFG, the Japanese financial giant.
That was last week. And it&rsquo;s still the case even after the news this weekend.
To quickly catch up: On Saturday, U.S.-Iran talks ended at an impasse. On Sunday, Donald Trump announced the U.S. Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1Q68C0leEnxVWfFGd7dHDC/9c756fb92a45e0e3b5268c1707e507c8/FMF-issue-041326_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Later, the Navy clarified what the president meant: U.S. warships will block all vessels leaving or traveling to Iranian ports.
As noted above, stock futures were tanking &mdash; and oil prices were zooming higher &mdash; ahead of the blockade taking effect at 10:00 a.m. EDT today.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But shortly before the market opened at 9:30 a.m. EDT, Axios reporter Barak Ravid delivered yet another &ldquo;scoop&rdquo; that had the effect of blunting those moves.
<blockquote>Pakistani, Egyptian and Turkish mediators will continue talks with the U.S. and Iran in the coming days, in an effort to bridge the remaining gaps and reach a deal to end the war, according to a regional source and a U.S. official&hellip; All parties still believe a deal is possible.</blockquote>
Whatever. We&rsquo;re used to this from Ravid by now. Or should be. Same stuff, different day.
Upon the start of a new week&rsquo;s trading last night, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate shot higher, from under $96 to nearly $105. Ravid&rsquo;s story pushed it down below $103.
And what was shaping up to be an ugly open for stocks is now turning into a humdrum day &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 flat at 6,818 and the Nasdaq up a quarter percent.
Earnings season is underway with Goldman Sachs first to report: GS quarterly profit is the highest in five years &mdash; but GS shares are down 3.3%. Can&rsquo;t say it often enough: It&rsquo;s not the news, it&rsquo;s the reaction to the news. And financial stocks can&rsquo;t catch a break lately&hellip;
Gold is pulling back but still holding the line on $4,700. Silver, however, is down nearly two bucks and back under $74.
Crypto is holding onto its weekend gains &mdash; Bitcoin just under $72,000 and Ethereum just over $2,200.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />About That Blockade&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Per The Wall Street Journal, a &ldquo;senior U.S. official&rdquo; says 15 warships are in position to enforce the blockade on Iranian ports &mdash; which again, took effect at 10:00 a.m. EDT.
Beyond that, much remains fuzzy. &ldquo;What are the rules of engagement?&rdquo; tweets retired Army combat officer Daniel Davis. &ldquo;Are you going to destroy any ship that tries to break the blockade? Will you try to board a ship and take physical control?
&ldquo;What if it&rsquo;s a Chinese ship with a Chinese flag, will you destroy it? What about a Russian ship? What do you think their reaction will be?&rdquo;
Asks ex-Navy SEAL Matthew Bracken: &ldquo;Can you imagine that US Navy SEALs are going to fast-rope onto Chinese-flagged tankers, soon to be escorted by Chinese warships? If that happens, &lsquo;Hello, World War&rsquo;."
Then again&hellip; a possible answer to these questions came at the end of March &mdash; when a Russian oil tanker successfully a the U.S. blockade of Cuba that&rsquo;s been in effect since January. (For its part, the White House said the tanker was allowed through for &ldquo;humanitarian reasons.&rdquo;)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Meanwhile, the two-week ceasefire supposedly remains in effect until April 22 &mdash; a week from Wednesday.
And then?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1SCxU3A48kSBcMfrW4acvX/e9d1570e3964cb2cd142f0333d05b86c/FMF-issue-041326_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
And the consequences are piling up&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Deliveries of liquefied natural gas to Asia have been squeezed to levels even lower than during COVID in 2020</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The trade group representing European airports warns that the continent will see shortages of jet fuel if the Strait of Hormuz doesn&rsquo;t open in the next three weeks</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Closer to home, AAA says the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded is $4.13 &mdash; up from $3.19 a year ago.</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Because we&rsquo;re equal-opportunity offenders around here&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1OTMSqebynmzPtLRixLszR/deed5a9b1ddc9c64caffa3e49899b248/FMF-issue-041326_4_.png.jpg" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: &ldquo;Veiled Political Digs&rdquo; and More Charlie Kirk
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Stop with your little veiled political digs against conservative, or for that matter liberal, journalists or podcasters,&rdquo; a reader implores after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/about-that-iranian-proposal">last Wednesday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a staunch advocate for our president and others who voice their views and opinions for the conservative constitutionalists like Mark Levin. You are a stock analyst and I&rsquo;m a paying client. I don&rsquo;t like reading derogatory remarks about other Americans and I won&rsquo;t hesitate to cancel my subscription if this keeps happening. You aren&rsquo;t the only one who does it, so please pass this on to others at Paradigm Press.
&ldquo;I realize that political policies affect the market and I don&rsquo;t have an issue with that point, but please stop the thinly veiled criticisms &mdash; so that I can remain a client. Thank you!&rdquo;
Dave responds: If any &ldquo;digs&rdquo; here come off as either little or veiled, then I&rsquo;ve failed as a writer.
Seriously, though&hellip; if you&rsquo;re a &ldquo;staunch advocate&rdquo; for the president and you&rsquo;re disheartened by &ldquo;derogatory remarks about other Americans&rdquo;... perhaps you should petition the White House and urge him to stop insulting Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly?
I&rsquo;m surprised he didn&rsquo;t lump in Andrew Napolitano, a real conservative constitutionalist who understands how war powers are supposed to work &mdash; as opposed to a 24/7 warhawk like Mark Levin who cares nothing about the <a href="https://iran-cost-ticker.com/">$50 billion</a> that this war has already cost, that we can&rsquo;t remotely afford and that does nothing to benefit everyday Americans just trying to get by.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave &mdash; just wanted to say that I appreciate your quiet attempt to keep Charlie Kirk's legacy in the realm of truth,&rdquo; a reader writes after Kirk came up in these digital pages last week.
&ldquo;Many of us who once supported Trump mark the day our faith was shaken as when he said &lsquo;Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?&rsquo; and the day that it was shattered by the coordinated hit, coverup and cynical martyrdom of Charlie Kirk.
&ldquo;Trump is dead to many of us because Charlie is dead. But hey, 'Have you SEEN my new ballroom or your 401(k)?'
&ldquo;Truth will prevail. But few have eyes to see, ears to hear or hearts of flesh to feel or discern. Charlie did. Most of those whom he called friends, colleagues and, indeed, family do not.
&ldquo;I appreciate that you are seemingly not in on it. Refreshing. And, tragically, rare.&rdquo;
Dave: Me, I have no idea who killed Charlie Kirk.
But &mdash; to invoke a couple of JFK analogies &mdash; I have a hard time believing it was a &ldquo;lone nut&rdquo; and I sure as hell don&rsquo;t believe in the &ldquo;magic spinal cord theory&rdquo;...

FMF-issue-041326(Featured)

The “Rest Easy” Strategy

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />About That Iranian Proposal&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />So here&rsquo;s the scorecard: On the eve of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude fetched $66.75. Today, amid a ceasefire, $92.58.
As you&rsquo;re probably aware, Donald Trump did not follow through last night on his casual threat to commit crimes against humanity &mdash; or as he put it yesterday, &ldquo;A whole civilization will die.&rdquo;
A fragile two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan is now in place.
We&rsquo;ll get into the terms of that agreement momentarily. For now, suffice to say that whatever you think of Trump, this development is undeniably a good thing.
If you&rsquo;re a Trump critic and think it was another &ldquo;TACO&rdquo; on his part, you&rsquo;re welcome to believe so. If you&rsquo;re a Trump partisan and want to believe he engineered a deal for the ages, have at it. The point is we can all breathe a sigh of relief at this outcome.
(Except Mark Levin. By one account he&rsquo;s been &ldquo;crying and throwing up on-air.&rdquo; This too is a good thing.)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />The most notable item in Trump&rsquo;s announcement is this: &ldquo;We have received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.&rdquo;
Tehran&rsquo;s terms have been public for a couple of days. As far as we know, this is a reliable translation&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1sXmIxgXhANbK1qd5No2AQ/054a91c8872e100a7026159897c7f41c/fmf_iran_10pt.png" alt="Iran's 10-pt peace plan" />
Hmmm&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Let&rsquo;s zero in on points 5&ndash;10 &mdash; seeing as the Strait of Hormuz was open to all before Washington and Tel Aviv launched the war on Feb. 28.
The Associated Press cites &ldquo;a regional official&rdquo; as saying Iran and Oman will both charge fees on ships transiting the strait while the ceasefire is underway.
&ldquo;The strait is in the territorial waters of both Oman and Iran,&rdquo; says the AP story. &ldquo;The world had considered the passage an international waterway and never paid tolls before.&rdquo;
Furthermore, social media statements from Iran suggest that while the ceasefire is in effect, &ldquo;only about 10&ndash;15 ships will be permitted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz with Iran&rsquo;s approval, in coordination with the IRGC Navy and after payment of tolls&hellip;&rdquo;
For perspective, before the war began the strait accommodated 100&ndash;120 ships a day.
For its part the giant shipping line Maersk says it&rsquo;s nowhere near resuming normal operations: &ldquo;At this point, we take a cautious approach, and we are not making any changes to specific services,&rdquo; says a company statement to the Reuters newswire.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Even if the ceasefire holds and leads to some new modus vivendi between Washington and Tehran, it will take months for the supply-chain kinks to work out. 
For instance, many of the oil tankers that departed the Gulf region shortly before the war are now approaching their destinations. Once they arrive, that&rsquo;s it: There&rsquo;s at least a 40-day gap before the next tankers show up.
And that doesn&rsquo;t even get into the oil installations that have been blown up&hellip; or the disruptions to shipments of liquefied natural gas, fertilizers, helium, sulfur, aluminum&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Less than 18 hours after the announcement, the truce is already looking shaky.
Either U.S. or Israeli jets fired on an Iranian refinery at Lavan Island. Tehran has fired back on a series of targets in the region &mdash; including the East-West pipeline that Saudi Arabia counts on to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani negotiators say the ceasefire includes a provision for Israel to end its attempted Gazafication of southern Lebanon. Instead, the Israeli military says it&rsquo;s launched the &ldquo;largest coordinated strike across Lebanon&rdquo; in over a month.
And in the bigger picture, Israel&rsquo;s objective in attacking Iran &mdash; not necessarily regime change but merely the destruction of Iran as a functioning nation-state &mdash; has not been attained.
But until another profanity-laden Trump tirade on social media accusing Iran of violating the ceasefire, the narrative in the markets is that peace is at hand and it&rsquo;s party time&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Everything Rally
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Call it the everything rally: Aside from oil and the U.S. dollar, every asset class is ripping higher on the ceasefire news.
For the record, West Texas Intermediate crude traded over $116 when we wrote to you yesterday. At last check this morning, it&rsquo;s under $93.
The dollar, relative to other major currencies, is also down: The U.S. dollar index sits at 98.74 &mdash; a level that&rsquo;s been a floor since the war began.
Elsewhere, though, everything is green: In early trading the S&amp;P 500 leaped 2.3% higher. At 6,771 the index has recovered well over half of the losses it registered since late February. Today&rsquo;s gains in the Dow and the Nasdaq are even stronger.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;Several key sectors are on the move this morning,&rdquo; Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner writes on the Paradigm Press mobile app.
(If you haven&rsquo;t downloaded the app, it&rsquo;s the easiest way to access all your paid-subscriber content &mdash; along with content we don&rsquo;t post anywhere else. <a href="https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/PPG-App/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download here.</a>)
&ldquo;The MAGs are cruising here, jumping a collective 4%. That should be good enough to dispel some of the bigger market worries as the MAGS ETF successfully retested its December 2024 highs.
&ldquo;Software stocks are also jumping this morning, lending more ammunition to those who were looking for a potential double-bottom in IGV. Semis are also rocketing higher. Even the lagging tech-growth stocks are waking up.&rdquo;
Bonds are rallying alongside stocks, pushing yields lower. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is under 4.27%, the lowest in three weeks.
Meanwhile, gold has rallied to its highest in three weeks &mdash; up $81 to $4,786. Silver has added $3.55 to $76.41.
And crypto is breaking out &mdash; Bitcoin at $71,654, Ethereum at $2,235.
&ldquo;Keep in mind,&rdquo; says Greg Guenthner, &ldquo;Bitcoin is still below its March 17 highs following last night&rsquo;s snapback. It&rsquo;s been steadily moving lower for six months, but has recently been hammering out a potential floor near $67K.
&ldquo;If Bitcoin can finally get moving in the right direction here, it will be yet another risk-on signal we can add to the list.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />California Screamin&rsquo; (Fuel Prices)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />As noted above, it&rsquo;s going to take weeks if not months for supply chains to unscramble &mdash; and that&rsquo;s bad news for California.
Even with the shale-energy bounty of the last 15 years, the United States still imports about 8% of its crude from the Middle East. And nearly half of that 8% goes to California.
Time was that California sourced the lion&rsquo;s share of its crude from either within the state or from Alaska.
But for most of this century, the Golden State has become increasingly reliant on oil from overseas &mdash; as you see in this chart from the California Energy Commission.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/W3QlyulvAzO1eIKk7QUxx/26c7b8eb5b17423a44dbc133c2d47d65/fmf_crude_california.png" alt="California Crude" />
What changed? &ldquo;California has taxed, litigated and regulated primary oil exploration and production down to bare bones, despite significant hydrocarbon potential in the state,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s resident oil field geologist Byron King.
&ldquo;In other words, California has grown in population (well&hellip; until the past couple of years, as people left due to toxic politics). And as anyone who has recently been there can tell you &mdash; just ask me! &mdash; there are way more cars, trucks, trains, airplanes and everything else out there and burning fuel, despite the state&rsquo;s so-called &lsquo;green&rsquo; efforts.&rdquo;
Between tight supply and high taxes, California gas prices are the highest in the country. And in some spots, diesel has surpassed $8 a gallon.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />An additional bottleneck: California also has to import a great deal of refined product &mdash; gasoline, diesel, jet fuel &mdash; because the number of refineries in California has dwindled from 40 in decades past to six today.
&ldquo;Until recently,&rdquo; says Byron, &ldquo;much of California&rsquo;s diesel fuel was imported from South Korea (yes, seriously). That is, oil would go from, say, Saudi to Korea, get refined and then move across the Pacific Ocean to California. But considering the Iran war, that&rsquo;s all coming to a halt.
&ldquo;Another source of refined products for California is the U.S. Gulf Coast, although it&rsquo;s a circuitous route via Bahamas (due to the Jones Act &mdash; long story) and then a transit through the Panama Canal.
&ldquo;California is a geographically isolated market. What makes it worse is that many of the refined products in Arizona and Nevada also originate from California. So looking ahead, the West Coast and adjacent states can expect much higher prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.&rdquo;
➢ Energy stocks are a bargain this morning after the beat-down in crude prices. As long as you steer clear of companies with substantial exposure to the Middle East, Byron says you&rsquo;ll do well &mdash; America&rsquo;s Chevron (CVX) and Brazil&rsquo;s Petrobras (PBR), for example. Likewise for the oil services names such as SLB (SLB) and Halliburton (HAL).
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Recognizing that energy prices will not revert to prewar levels, this is still relevant&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1CoWQavU0jyIG6GPExpKIO/3701a04d2ba6be01e6d1135e26ff14a0/fmf_meme_petrol.jpg" alt="Petrol Meme" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Turkey, Charlie Kirk
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />A parenthetical mention in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-best-of-times-the-worst-of-times" target="_blank" rel="noopener">last Thursday&rsquo;s edition</a> that &ldquo;after Iran, the war hawks have their sights set on Turkey next&rdquo; prompts a reader&rsquo;s objection&hellip;
&ldquo;With that nutty statement (never gonna happen), you have suddenly made me aware of a certain angle I didn&rsquo;t know you had, and I&rsquo;m not a fan. I love reading your stuff, but that one did some damage I&rsquo;m afraid.&rdquo;
Dave responds: &ldquo;Turkey is the new Iran,&rdquo; <a href="https://themedialine.org/headlines/the-new-iran-bennett-warns-of-emerging-axis-at-conference-of-presidents/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett two months ago. Bennett described Turkey&rsquo;s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan as &ldquo;sophisticated, dangerous and he seeks to encircle Israel.&rdquo;
Former Pentagon official Michael Rubin, now with the American Enterprise Institute, has <a href="https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/10/israel-should-openly-support-the-pkk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">argued</a> that Israel should arm Kurdish separatists in Turkey &mdash; on the grounds that the Erdogan government is &ldquo;a Hamas-sponsoring, Islamist and increasingly anti-Semitic country.&rdquo;
Bradley Martin of the Near East Center for Strategic Studies penned an Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal last month <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/an-urgent-need-to-contain-turkey-f5aa3435" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asserting</a> that, &ldquo;While neutralizing the regional threat posed by Iran, the U.S. and Israel must ensure that Turkey doesn&rsquo;t take its place.&rdquo;
No, these aren&rsquo;t direct calls to topple Erdogan from current U.S. or Israeli government leaders. Still, these are influential voices demanding interventions that if carried out are bound to climb the proverbial &ldquo;escalation ladder&rdquo;...
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;Wise words by Charlie Kirk,&rdquo; a reader writes about the conclusion of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/just-another-tuesday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;Trump's style of negotiation doesn't work with fanatics who think God is waiting to welcome them when they are &lsquo;martyred&rsquo; by their own insanity. This ain't the art of the deal Trump thinks he can always win.
&ldquo;Yet he keeps raising the stakes. Can he really think the threats will work? Insanity all around! We will never really know why he joined Israel in this war. But it's hard to believe he has a larger goal here &mdash; you know, 4D chess LOL.&rdquo;
From another reader: &ldquo;Of all the anti-war comments from celebrities the best you can do is Charlie Kirk thanking Trump for his restraint during his first term?
&ldquo;He had us in Afghanistan for four years. And campaigned to get us out in 2016. And the new CEO of Turning Point has yet to criticize Trump for the new mess he started. Just saying.&rdquo;
Dave: Not entirely sure what you&rsquo;re getting at. I cited Charlie Kirk not because he was a perfect embodiment of Ron Paul non-interventionism but because of the respect he commanded and still commands from a wide swath of &ldquo;the right.&rdquo;
As you might know, Kirk offered his approval when Trump bombed Tehran&rsquo;s civilian nuclear sites last June &mdash; on the presumption that it was a &ldquo;one and done&rdquo; thing.
What might he have said about the events of the last 40 days? One wonders &mdash; especially in light of the <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2025/09/12/charlie-kirk-netanyahu-israel-assassination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bits</a> and <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2025/09/22/israel-tpusa-donor-terminated-kirk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pieces</a> we&rsquo;ve learned about how he was losing backing and funding in the weeks after the airstrikes and before his murder.