<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)

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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

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" />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" />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.

fmf hero 040826

About That Iranian Proposal...

<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 Another Tuesday
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And so here we are: The U.S. president threatens &ldquo;a whole civilization will die tonight&rdquo; and the U.S. stock market sees it as just another Tuesday.
As we write, the president&rsquo;s 8:00 p.m. EDT deadline remains in place.
We&rsquo;ll get to the war and the markets in Bullet No. 2. But first&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s essential to zoom out and observe the mainstream is catching on to something we&rsquo;ve warned about for years.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7dB1ufMhrd8m8FiQUhCdAb/31d0a74736a2f217e652a2d42b80c6d9/FMF-Issue-040726-1.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
As a reminder, the &ldquo;petrodollar&rdquo; arrangement is what emerged in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo in late 1973 &mdash; a response to U.S. support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Oil prices quadrupled in a matter of weeks.
The following year, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger midwifed a system under which Saudi Arabia prices oil in U.S. dollars and uses its clout to get other OPEC nations to do the same. In return, the U.S. government protects Saudi Arabia and its allies against foreign invaders and domestic rebellions.
Starting in 1974, anyone who wanted to buy oil needed dollars to do so. The Saudi and other Gulf governments then took those dollars and invested them in U.S. Treasury debt.
The petrodollar greased the wheels of world commerce and underwrote Uncle Sam&rsquo;s decades-long debt bender.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For more than 10 years, we&rsquo;ve been chronicling signs that this arrangement was slowly coming apart. 
A turning point came in 2022 &mdash; after Russia invaded Ukraine and Washington responded with a raft of sanctions aimed at curbing Russia&rsquo;s energy revenue.
Russia soon began selling oil to China and India in exchange for yuan and rupees. And Saudi Arabian leaders started talking publicly about selling oil to China for yuan.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> If 2022 was a turning point, 2026 is the breaking point.
In a Bloomberg opinion column, Aaron Brown &mdash; the former head of financial market research at AQR Capital &mdash; describes the dynamic of the last 39 days:
<blockquote>Turkey, India, Thailand and other oil-importing nations are caught in a brutal arithmetic: Oil priced in dollars has surged past $100 a barrel while their currencies weaken against the greenback. To limit depreciation &mdash; which would push domestic oil prices even higher, forcing either fiscal subsidies or household pain &mdash; central banks intervene in currency markets. That requires dollars. The most liquid dollar asset any central bank holds is Treasuries. So they sell.</blockquote>
Result: Foreign central banks have been net sellers of Treasuries for five straight weeks. That&rsquo;s pushing Treasury prices down and Treasury yields up. The yield on a 10-year T-note was 3.9% when the war began and climbed over 4.4% by late March.
Typically during moments of geopolitical turmoil, Treasuries are a safe haven for scared money. No more. Brown again:
<blockquote>The flight-to-quality trade has always rested on a political premise: That in a global crisis, the United States is a stabilizer or bystander, not a combatant. But the calculus changes when the U.S. itself is the belligerent; when the conflict is partly America&rsquo;s war, driving the oil shock, straining Gulf relationships and generating the fiscal pressure that has bond investors worried about U.S. budget deficits. Not completely. Not permanently. But enough.</blockquote>
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It was inevitable. If it wasn&rsquo;t the Iran war, it would be something else. Interest rates tend to move in long 80-year cycles &mdash; 40 years up, 40 years down.
They&rsquo;ve been headed up since the summer of 2020 &mdash; not in a straight line, but the trajectory is in place. Long-term Treasuries are no longer a safe haven. (Your editor ditched all his long-term Treasury holdings in 2024 once it was clear 2020 marked the bottom in rates.)
Gold fulfills the safe-haven role from here. Yes, it&rsquo;s taken a tumble in recent weeks. That too is a function of the global dash for liquidity Brown describes above. &ldquo;Weak hands&rdquo; are selling. Strong hands are scooping up a (relative) bargain, getting ready for the next phase up.
<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" />Countdown
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Amid Donald Trump&rsquo;s latest threats, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up nearly four bucks, over $116.
We must caution once more: That&rsquo;s just the futures price. Real barrels for export to oil-starved customers overseas are fetching much higher prices.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1li78WYXxyNsljx9K4LUoP/ac646a6dec4538a29469c7f12c69c80f/FMF-Issue-040726-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The post above prompted the following reply from a self-described &ldquo;captain of an offshore drilling asset&rdquo;:
<blockquote>The physical market is telling a much different story than paper. The scary part is that markets don&rsquo;t seem to care right now. It really feels like Feb of 2020 all over again. You could see the world shutting down yet everyone in the U.S. just turned a blind eye to it.</blockquote>
&ldquo;The last ship from Hormuz is arriving in Europe in three days,&rdquo; says a tweet from commodities analyst Lukas Ekwueme. &ldquo;In the U.S., eight days. Australia in two weeks.&rdquo;
If the Strait of Hormuz reopened today, it would take at least 40 days before any more oil comes into port.
&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re seeing now is still the front edge of the shock,&rdquo; Ekweume concludes. &ldquo;The full extent of the supply shortfall hasn&rsquo;t even hit yet.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And the war grinds on as the deadline approaches: After U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on an Iranian petrochemical hub, Tehran hit back &mdash; hard.
Iranian airstrikes torched the kingdom&rsquo;s Jubail petrochemical facility &mdash; which accounts for 7% of Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s total economic output.
There&rsquo;s considerable doubt about the provenance of the video footage accompanying most of the social media posts about this attack. The Gulf sheikdoms have been cracking down hard on video footage of attacks on their countries.
NASA&rsquo;s fire-mapping platform called FIRMS, on the other hand, is more reliable&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/lnkhz6ku0i5q5oumRK1v4/c7fd2697a694712a37d85e165102b875/FMF-Issue-040726-3.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Meanwhile, on the Paradigm Press mobile app, our own Byron King spotted a chart from Katusa Research that reminds us the supply squeeze isn&rsquo;t just about oil&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/16caQneuSFZaYhT734O7cD/d9692a08d7468c482c585f9a4f14c054/FMF-Issue-040726-4.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" /> The stock market reaction seems to be one of &ldquo;fearing the worst and hoping for another Trump TACO.&rdquo;
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At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is down 0.8% at 6,557. The Dow&rsquo;s losses are narrower, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s steeper.
Gold is steady at $4,646 but silver has shed nearly two bucks to $70.62. No excitement in crypto &mdash; Bitcoin a little under $68,000 and Ethereum at $2,070.
<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" />Medicare Climb-Down
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The health insurance stocks are defying today&rsquo;s modest sell-off &mdash; because of a climb-down by the Trump administration.
In January we told you the administration was proposing to hold its 2027 compensation for Medicare insurers at 2026 levels. The announcement hammered the share prices of UnitedHealth and other big companies providing Medicare Advantage plans.
But that was just a proposal and not a final announcement. The final announcement came after the market close yesterday: Next year&rsquo;s payments will be 2.48% higher.
That&rsquo;s nowhere near the 4&ndash;6% that Wall Street analysts were counting on at the beginning of the year &mdash; but it&rsquo;s enough to send UNH shares up 8% today, and CVS nearly 5%.
Why the change of heart by the administration? &ldquo;We have to be wise stewards of the tax dollar,&rdquo; says Medicare program director Chris Klomp &mdash; but &ldquo;we need to make sure that plans aren&rsquo;t pulling out of markets, that they&rsquo;re not cutting benefits that beneficiaries are relying on,&rdquo; he tells The Wall Street Journal.
Well, OK. But this issue will rear its head again next year. And the year after that.
Something&rsquo;s got to give, eventually. The U.S. health care system is <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/health-care-on-trial">ruinously expensive</a> &mdash; consuming 35 cents of every dollar spent by the federal government.
Our guidance from January stands: If you&rsquo;re on a Medicare Advantage plan right now &mdash; more than half of Medicare beneficiaries are &mdash; it&rsquo;s not too early to start thinking about what your world will look like if the system can no longer sustain these plans and your only option is a more costly Medicare supplement or &ldquo;Medigap&rdquo; plan.
<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" /> We get our yuks where we can find them&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7HPdi5ErG5vtFJvjl1qxt2/128a994be867a4d15b94b830ef5514ed/FMF-Issue-040726-5.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: Tough Jobs, Propagandists
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave, as usual your response to my note was very well said,&rdquo; a reader writes back after the mailbag in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/lights-out-iran-edition">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;I know that you guys have a very tough job in helping investors maximize their returns without setting them up to take massive losses when markets shift. I think you guys do it better than almost any other investment service I&rsquo;ve encountered but don&rsquo;t quote me on that because I don&rsquo;t have the data to back it up 😉.&nbsp;
&ldquo;You&rsquo;re very good at your job and I get lots of value from your missives so I hope that you plan to continue (as I do as long as I think I still bring value) for some years yet.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Mr. Gonigam, I&rsquo;ve noticed a concerning trend in the X accounts you choose to highlight in your daily newsletter,&rdquo; a reader writes.
&ldquo;It took me a couple minutes to swipe through Brandon Weichert&rsquo;s X feed to realize he is a hack and media propagandist. Not the worst by any means, but he reposts garbage accounts that push misleading and hyperbolic narratives. It&rsquo;s a credibility issue.
&ldquo;But we can&rsquo;t follow the likes of Loomer, Bongino and now Hannity for fear of falling into a closed loop of information gathering. I understand the shortcomings of MAGA and political idolatry, but the American political system is broken. Progressives took over the Democrat party and their policies have destroyed a debt-laden West. We have to choose sides. I&rsquo;ll never vote Democrat again, and Democrats will never vote for a Libertarian. I don&rsquo;t think they are well versed in Mises or Tocqueville.
&ldquo;Trump was an extreme choice, but the fatal flaw in party politics is you have to pick somebody who can win. We are stuck, at least until the union breaks apart; or election outcomes become compulsory and predetermined.
&ldquo;In the meantime I will support and follow those who rightfully skewer the progressives and radical left. Which at times has been Mr. Gonigam himself! That&rsquo;s when I like him best.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Well, thank you. To address your first concern: Even hacks and propagandists have a worthwhile point to make now and then.
Everyone&rsquo;s mileage will vary but I can&rsquo;t bring myself to take sides. If we&rsquo;re to take the president at his word, he&rsquo;s on the verge of taking a catastrophic step tonight or tomorrow. And rather than put up any resistance at a moment it&rsquo;s most needed&hellip; the Democrats are standing aside so they can win the midterms.
We&rsquo;ll give the final word today to Charlie Kirk, from the grave&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/rw6ZBLu5rBnEZ4omuXc46/0a5f5020d7d4858e5ecaa06d92dc53a0/FMF-Issue-040726-6.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />

FMF-Issue-040726-Featured

Just Another Tuesday

<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" />Lights out (Iran Edition)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The latest deadline for the start of U.S. attacks on Iran&rsquo;s power grid is 8:00 p.m. EDT tomorrow night. 
Subject to change, that is&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1bhqnvUzK9nDWmo0CE96Ke/4f892a3f156c24480b510abb1f91fe96/FMF-Issue-040626_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The current deadline is attached to a demand that Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz &mdash; which we&rsquo;ll remind you was open for all to transit before Washington and Tel Aviv launched this war.
Should the president follow through, the Iranian response will be severe.
&ldquo;Iran will retaliate and destroy critical power plants in nations where US forces are operating,&rdquo; writes ex-Navy SEAL Matthew Bracken. That includes Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
&ldquo;Iran is 95% water self-sufficient. On the other side of the Persian Gulf they are 90% dependent on desalinated water. Millions may perish from lack of water. It will be impossible to fly them all out in time to prevent a massive human disaster.&rdquo;
But about the electricity&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Iran's power grid is very robust and redundant compared to the American grid,&rdquo; Bracken writes on his Substack page.
&ldquo;90% of Iranian households are connected to gas pipelines and a mostly gas-powered electric grid. Iran's natural gas is virtually unlimited for many decades to come. Destroyed sections of natural gas pipelines can be fixed in hours, or days at most. Gas and electricity can be rerouted around Iran's vast interconnected grids as individual power plants are struck, and then repaired.
&ldquo;Iran&rsquo;s gas and electric grid networks were designed this way for a purpose. The eight-year war from 1980&ndash;1988 is not a distant memory. Iran has remained on a war footing ever since, planning for damage control.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In contrast, &ldquo;the USA is far more vulnerable to catastrophic cascading power failure than Iran,&rdquo; Bracken continues.
He invokes the still-unsolved sniper attack in 2013 targeting the Metcalf transmission substation near San Jose, California &mdash; operated by Pacific Gas and Electric. The saboteurs fired on 17 electrical transformers.
The impact on the grid was minimal &mdash; as electricity was rerouted from other power plants around Silicon Valley. But by many accounts, that was just a lucky break.
&ldquo;10 Metcalf attacks at the same time could take out the power across entire regions of America,&rdquo; Bracken writes.
That&rsquo;s not hyperbole &mdash; <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2014/03/13/the-18-month-nationwide-blackout/">as we&rsquo;ve chronicled previously</a>. The same year as the Metcalf attack, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission performed a computer-model stress test of the national power grid.
The findings were summarized in a memo prepared for the FERC's commissioner: "Destroy nine interconnection substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer."
That&rsquo;s just nine substations out of 55,000 total nationwide.
The good news is that leaders in Tehran know how unpopular this war is in the United States. The last thing they&rsquo;d want to do at this time is anything that would create a &ldquo;rally &rsquo;round the flag&rdquo; effect.
Unfortunately, all the problems that existed with the U.S. power grid before the war remain. An update about that is coming in Bullet No. 3.
But for the moment, we turn to the latest war developments and the markets today&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" />If It&rsquo;s Monday, It Must Be Ceasefire Buzz&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Threats notwithstanding, it seems the market is pricing in another TACO &mdash; which, to refresh your memory, is short for &ldquo;Trump always chickens out.&rdquo;
It being Monday, there&rsquo;s renewed chatter from Washington about a ceasefire &mdash; chatter that Tehran denies has any validity.
Crude shot higher as the new week began last night &mdash; past $115 briefly &mdash; but at last check a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is now down slightly from Friday&rsquo;s close at $111.26.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But those are oil futures &mdash; &ldquo;paper barrels,&rdquo; as it were. Real barrels being delivered to Asian refiners cost anywhere between $130-170, according to Carlyle Group&rsquo;s Jeff Currie.
When it comes to commodities, Currie is a vital voice outside of Paradigm that we follow closely.
&ldquo;You look at the paper markets, they&rsquo;ve entirely disconnected from the physical markets,&rdquo; Currie told Bloomberg TV last Thursday.
&ldquo;The supply shock [now] is almost equal to the demand shock during COVID. And we know what that did to global supply chains. So I think at $100 a barrel, this thing&rsquo;s mispriced.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the meantime, more vessels are transiting <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/rush-for-the-exits/#3">the &ldquo;tollbooth&rdquo; that Iran has erected</a> in the Strait of Hormuz.
&ldquo;Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has climbed to its highest levels since the early days of the war, as more countries secure apparent safe-passage agreements with Iran,&rdquo; Bloomberg reports. &ldquo;The waterway saw 21 ships transit over the weekend.&rdquo;
But that&rsquo;s still a far cry from the prewar daily average of 135 ships. Analysts at Morgan Stanley project the strait will be more or less shut through the end of this month.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Amid that backdrop, the ceasefire chatter is driving the major U.S. stock indexes up slightly from last week&rsquo;s close.
The S&amp;P 500 is up a little less than a quarter percent, about four points shy of 6,600 &mdash; the highest since March 19, The Dow and the Nasdaq are also in the green.
The stock market&rsquo;s seeming indifference to the disruption in global oil flows brought forth this bit of grim humor&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/Kqv3mqdbRwbezl8wjwHgg/efc7e841de00b1b7a7940cb5a33d0362/FMF-Issue-040626_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
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Gold begins the new week down slightly at $4,665 and silver down about 1% at $72.19. Crypto is staging a modest rally &mdash; Bitcoin less than $300 away from the $70,000 mark again and Ethereum at $2,165.
Speaking of data centers&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" />About That Data Center Buildout&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The breakneck buildout of data centers is running into severe real-world restraints &mdash; namely a lack of transformers.
&ldquo;Almost half of the U.S. data centers planned for this year are expected to be delayed or canceled,&rdquo; warns a Bloomberg dispatch. &ldquo;One big reason is the shortage of electrical equipment, such as transformers, switchgear and batteries.&rdquo;
That gear accounts for only about 10% of a data center&rsquo;s total cost &mdash; but &ldquo;if one piece of your supply chain is delayed, then your whole project can&rsquo;t deliver,&rdquo; says Andrew Likens of Crusoe Energy Systems.
Privately held Crusoe is a fortunate exception to the rule: It managed to secure enough gear that it expects to complete a data center campus on schedule for OpenAI in Abilene, Texas.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This supply crunch affects not only data center construction but the buildout of the power grid necessary to support those data centers.
We saw it coming nearly a year ago: The North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned last May that a shortage of &ldquo;parts, materials and skilled technicians&rdquo; is holding up both maintenance of existing transformers and installation of new ones.
&ldquo;We can talk about tens of gigawatts of new potential electricity demand,&rdquo; energy journalist Robert Bryce told the Financial Sense podcast &mdash; &ldquo;but if we don't have the turbines, transformers and the people to build the capacity, well, that simply won't be realized. That capacity, that new electricity availability, just simply won't be there.&rdquo;
Ironically the slowdown in data center construction might put a crimp in projected electric demand as the year goes on.
But the long-term supply crunch remains real. Most of the biggest power transformers are imported. And many of the most important parts come from China.
<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" />Follow-up: Private Credit
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the record: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warns that losses from private credit will be greater than much of Wall Street expects.
We&rsquo;ve been sounding the alarm about private credit for the last six months &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/rush-for-the-exits">most recently Friday</a> with the help of Paradigm macro authority Jim Rickards.
As a refresher, private credit is a term covering a wide variety of loans that used to be offered by banks but now are offered by the likes of Blackstone, Apollo and KKR.
Many of these private credit providers lent to companies with high levels of debt relative to their earnings &mdash; and they&rsquo;re now sitting on losses. In some cases these providers have prevented investors in these loans from withdrawing their funds.
In his annual shareholder letter, Dimon warns: &ldquo;I do believe that when we have a credit cycle, which will happen one day, losses on all leveraged lending in general will be higher than expected, relative to the environment&hellip; This is because credit standards have been modestly weakening pretty much across the board.&rdquo;
Yes, Dimon <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/wartime-sacrifice">represents everything wrong</a> with our &ldquo;financialized&rdquo; economy that relies on moving money around instead of creating new wealth&hellip; but we&rsquo;ll take his warning at face value here.
<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: SpaceX and Market Manias
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> After <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-best-of-times-the-worst-of-times">Thursday&rsquo;s edition</a> in which we briefly unpacked the case against buying SpaceX once it goes public&hellip;
&hellip; we heard from a reader who says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a 60-year-old certified management accountant. I&rsquo;ve been involved with several M&amp;A transactions and currently have a minority equity stake in a group of businesses that does around $200 million in revenue.
&ldquo;When I hear that an IPO is valued at 117X revenues ($1.75 trillion versus $15 billion) this is a clear sign that we are in mania territory.
&ldquo;You guys are usually straight shooters but I&rsquo;m disappointed that you weren&rsquo;t more explicit in your denouncement of this deal. In the real world, guys like me analyze earnings (not revenue) as proper fundamental technical analysis. And we mortgage our houses to make deals for companies that are 3&ndash;6 times earnings not 117X revenues. You want to get laughed out of my office, come to me with that deal.
&ldquo;I understand new tech and IP, and Space X is not that&hellip; it is a well-established company with years of financial reporting (albeit internal not external).
&ldquo;My humble opinion is that people are going to lose their shirts if they invest in this IPO. Now, I think that you guys try to look after your customers but I&rsquo;m disappointed that you&rsquo;re not more explicitly pointing out that we&rsquo;re clearly in a mania. Somehow it has become normalized that future revenues have become recognized as a valid way of valuing a company which is complete bollocks unless you are talking about a true new technology IPO.
&ldquo;OK, rant over. I&rsquo;m worried about what happens to people when this bubble bursts. Please do what you can with your team to prepare them for the worst if it happens.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thank you for sharing your concerns. It&rsquo;s rare when a reader calls us out for not being emphatic enough!
My colleague Davis Wilson expanded on his case against SpaceX <a href="https://million-mission.com/posts/spacex-the-math-is-ugly">in Friday&rsquo;s edition of </a><a href="https://million-mission.com/posts/spacex-the-math-is-ugly">The Million Mission</a>. Drawing on his experience in investment banking, he concludes, &ldquo;Great companies and great investments are not the same thing&rdquo; &mdash; and with that in mind he urges readers in no uncertain terms to &ldquo;stay AWAY from this IPO.&rdquo;
As for the broader issue of a &ldquo;mania&rdquo; or &ldquo;bubble&rdquo;... the problem is that manias and bubbles can go on way longer than sober-minded folks like you and me reasonably expect.
Lots of very smart people bailed from the dot-com boom and took profits at the end of 1998 &mdash; missing out as the Nasdaq proceeded to double over the next 14 months.
I suspect many of those people slept soundly and did not kick themselves for the profits they gave up. But that&rsquo;s because they were very early to the party and already booked huge gains.
As editors and publishers, we have an exceedingly tricky task &mdash; mindful that even as a mania or bubble is underway, we&rsquo;re also writing for an audience of retail investors, many of whom were not early to the party and who will not forgive us readily if our guidance leads them to miss out on 1999-style gains.
So we collectively watch everything from company fundamentals to chart action to events in Washington. At this time it&rsquo;s the assessment of our chief investment director Enrique Abeyta that the &ldquo;mania&rdquo; is not yet approaching its end.
But he &mdash; and all of us &mdash; are on watch for signs telling us when it is. So stay tuned&hellip;

shutterstock 1069671815

Lights out (Iran Edition)

<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" />Rush For the Exits
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a massive financial crisis heading our way, and it has nothing to do with Iran,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards.
We first alerted you to this looming crisis six months ago &ndash; when the auto parts maker First Brands Group filed for bankruptcy.
First Brands financed its operations through the &ldquo;private credit&rdquo; market &mdash; loans that were once the province of banks but are now dominated by players like Blackstone, Apollo and KKR.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Private credit funds are a $2.5&ndash;$4 trillion market in loans to companies that offer financing for software start-ups, subprime auto loans, tech equipment and more,&rdquo; Jim explained this week to Strategic Intelligence readers.
&ldquo;Even a 20% loss rate, which some analysts project, could translate to almost $1 trillion in losses.
&ldquo;The subprime mortgage meltdown in 2008, if you recall, involved about $1 trillion in subprime loans. The S&amp;L crisis of the 1980s involved about $800 billion of bad commercial real estate loans. Today&rsquo;s private credit crisis could be even worse and it&rsquo;s just getting started.&rdquo;
Yesterday, Blue Owl Capital &ndash; which is quickly becoming the poster child for this phenomenon &ndash; disclosed that its investors asked to pull $5.4 billion from a pair of Blue Owl funds during the first quarter. &ldquo;The redemption requests amounted to 22% of its $36 billion private-credit fund and 41% of a technology-focused fund,&rdquo; says The Wall Street Journal.
A few weeks ago, Blue Owl told some of its investors they would not be allowed to withdraw their money on demand. They&rsquo;d get their money back on Blue Owl&rsquo;s schedule, once Blue Owl sold off assets to raise cash.
This week also brought less dire but still concerning disclosures from Apollo, Blackstone, BlackRock and Cliffwater.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> So&hellip; once the losses materialize, who will eat them?
The losses &ldquo;begin with fund investors,&rdquo; Jim continues. &ldquo;Then they move to managers, whose fees shrink as net asset values fall. But they do not stop there.
&ldquo;These vehicles often rely on leverage &mdash; secured loans, warehouse lines and other funding facilities provided by banks. When collateral values weaken and borrowers cannot refinance, losses move from the funds to the lenders.
&ldquo;Moody&rsquo;s now estimates bank exposure to private credit may be $300 billion in direct lending to providers, $285 billion in lending to funds plus $340 billion in unutilized bank lending commitments. That&rsquo;s a total of $925 billion in direct credit exposure to the private credit sector.&rdquo;
And while the big banks no longer do much lending to private business, they do lend to the private credit lenders. Wells Fargo has by far the most exposure ($60 billion) with Bank of America in second place ($33 billion) and the other major players not far behind.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;In my experience, financial crises are rarely the product of one shock alone,&rdquo; says Jim.
&ldquo;They come when several stresses that seem separate suddenly converge. Those events may not be correlated when the economy is steady, but they become correlated in a crisis. This is known as conditional correlation.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s what happened when the Russian credit failure landed in the lap of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. And it&rsquo;s happening again as the software-stock implosion, Iran war and the prime-credit meltdown start to feed off each other.
&ldquo;For reference, if one compares this to the global financial crisis (2007&ndash;2009), we&rsquo;re closer to the Bear Stearns credit-fund stage (July 2007).&rdquo;
In other words, the &ldquo;Lehman moment&rdquo; (September 2008) might still be more than a year away.
Consider yourself on notice. And of course, we&rsquo;ll stay on top of the situation, seeking profit opportunities along the way. (Some of our readers bagged 462% gains with Lehman put options in the summer of 2008).
We&rsquo;ve been a good three months ahead of the mainstream on the private credit car wreck &ndash; and we aim to keep that leg up.
<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" />While the Markets are Closed&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> With the markets closed for Good Friday, there&rsquo;s a lot going on that markets can&rsquo;t react to&hellip;
For one thing, an American F-15E has been shot down near the Iran-Iraq border &ndash; no word yet on the fate of the crew at last check. Going into the three-day weekend, oil closed last night over $112 &ndash; the highest close since 2022.
For another thing, after the market closed yesterday the Trump administration announced a wicked-complicated new tariff scheme for pharmaceuticals. The tariff rate could be as high as 100%, but there&rsquo;s a host of carve-outs.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For a third thing, the wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered the March jobs report this morning. 
They conjured 178,000 new jobs for the month &ndash; way more than Wall Street economists were expecting, and more than enough to offset February&rsquo;s losses. The official unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%.
Whatever. These numbers are so manipulated and noisy that we try to find a lodestar in figures that the statisticians can&rsquo;t game.
With that in mind, the labor force participation rate &ndash; the percentage of the over-16 population that&rsquo;s either working or looking for work &ndash; was 61.9% last month. That&rsquo;s down from 62.5% a year earlier. Aside from the pandemic plunge and recovery, the last time the number was this low was early 1977 &ndash; when women were still entering the workforce en masse.
And there was this tidbit from the jobs report&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/PLF70kDAehqQZ0R387GW7/3b7fa39e02e531b0e005594db557905d/FMF-Issue-040326_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<a id="3"></a>
The report also shows that federal government employment is now down 11.8% from its peak in October 2024.
If only declining federal payrolls translated to lower federal spending and a less intrusive federal government&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" />Iran&rsquo;s New Tollbooth
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The Strait of Hormuz is slowly reopening &ldquo;under new management.&rdquo;
Just in from Bloomberg this morning: &ldquo;A container ship signaling French ownership has exited the Strait of Hormuz, in what appears to be the first known transit by a vessel linked to Western Europe since the Iran war all but shuttered the vital waterway.&rdquo;
No comment from the French government, or from the ship&rsquo;s owner CMA CGM &ndash; the world&rsquo;s third-biggest container line.
As we try to mention every time the subject comes up, Iran hasn&rsquo;t closed the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, it&rsquo;s enforcing a selective blockade whereas before the war ships could transit freely.
Tehran has more or less set up a tollbooth.
&ldquo;Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is exerting control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, extracting tolls from vessels passing through and giving preferential treatment to ships from countries it deems friendly,&rdquo; said an earlier Bloomberg dispatch this week.
&ldquo;Ship operators have to contact an intermediary company linked to the IRGC and provide information about their vessel to negotiate a toll, which typically starts at around $1 per barrel of oil, and receive a permit code and route instructions to safely pass through the strait.&rdquo;
With oil trading well north of $100 a barrel, a $1-per-barrel fee seems modest.
To be sure, traffic through the strait is still a trickle relative to what it was pre-war. But as we prepare to hit &ldquo;send&rdquo; on this edition, a Japanese vessel has transited the strait along with the French one mentioned a moment ago.
What fee are they paying? And in what currency?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2u35AER6fNZSuVvaaJzpWP/85e02e0476d18f2b4feb19930361bcd3/FMF-Issue-040326_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
But that&rsquo;s a story for another day&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
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Note well: The following was posted nearly a month ago and became newly relevant yesterday.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/32T78RFBw2SMuwab5cFbdp/e4744794885c3f018adda5646d4cdce3/FMF-Issue-040326_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
And the Dow has shed another 1,000 points since&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: Alex Jones?!
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-best-of-times-the-worst-of-times">Yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a> prompted the following reader feedback&hellip;
&ldquo;I realize that you have a point of view about the war. I respectfully disagree with it. But citing Alex Jones as an example of a pundit souring on the President is laughable.
&ldquo;What&rsquo;s next &ndash; observing that Trump has lost the Nick Fuentes wing of the MAGA movement, all three dozen of them?&rdquo;
Dave responds: On the contrary, Jones has immense value as a weathervane.
I&rsquo;ve never followed him very closely, but he&rsquo;s been on my radar for a long time. I can remember when it was easier to hear him on a shortwave radio than on a laggy dial-up internet connection.
Key point: He&rsquo;s never really had a fixed set of beliefs. In his earlier years, for example, he aligned with the &ldquo;Cop Block&rdquo; movement, frequently denouncing the excesses of militarized law enforcement. Then he flip-flopped in 2014 during the riots in Ferguson, Missouri &ndash; when he figured he could get more clicks and engagement by saying that policing has never been more dangerous, yada yada.
So for him to be turning on Trump now? Yeah, it&rsquo;s an interesting signpost.
But never mind a crank like Jones or a white nationalist like Fuentes. Pretty much the entire universe of &ldquo;podcast bros&rdquo; who put Trump over the top with younger male voters in 2024 has turned on him&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2GNi9sujU1NgcFHgrUywjR/d3b2e8820516e28475513fbe025cefcb/FMF-Issue-040326_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&hellip;excepting, of course, the execrable Dan Bongino.
The financial newsletter business has always been about tackling ideas that challenge conventional wisdom &ndash; even if, now and then, it means taking readers out of their own comfort zone.
If in the present moment that means piercing the boomercons&rsquo; Hannitized echo chamber&hellip; so be it.
Better that you learn about this now than wonder next November why throngs of under-50s who voted for Trump in 2024 sat on their hands in the &lsquo;26 midterms.

FMF-Issue-040326(Featured)

Rush for the Exits

<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" />Artemis and SpaceX
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This really is a &ldquo;best of times, worst of times&rdquo; sort of moment here in early April 2026. Let&rsquo;s start by accentuating the positive&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3g1rab9ErHEqBRHKk1Jfbj/5453607d71aba55ef9cb3a93568dc9e4/FMF-Issue-040226_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
So far, so good for the Artemis II crew&rsquo;s goal to circumavigate the moon &ndash; NASA&rsquo;s first moon mission since 1972.
As noted here yesterday, Elon Musk figured the hours before launch was as good a time as any to file for SpaceX&rsquo;s IPO.
For the moment, SpaceX&rsquo;s financials are still a black box. We won&rsquo;t know more until we get closer to the actual IPO day &ndash; and that day is not yet set in the calendar.
&ldquo;One date I&rsquo;ve heard floated,&rdquo; says Paradigm tech-investing specialist Ray Blanco, &ldquo;is Musk&rsquo;s birthday &ndash; June 28, when he turns 55. Another is earlier in the month, a rare planetary alignment June 8 and 9.&rdquo;
June 9 has the added advantage of indulging Musk&rsquo;s penchant for juvenile humor. 6/9. Get it?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The excitement about SpaceX is palpable &ndash; but how does it stack up as a viable play for retail investors?
The IPO values the company at $1.75 trillion, while SpaceX generates about $15 billion in annual revenue.
&ldquo;Now compare that,&rdquo; says Davis Wilson of our sister e-letter The Million Mission, &ldquo;to some of the other largest companies in the world:
<ul>
<li>Amazon &mdash; $2.3T valuation with $717B in revenue</li>
<li>Meta Platforms &mdash; $1.5T valuation with $201B in revenue</li>
<li>Broadcom &mdash; $1.5T valuation with $68B in revenue</li>
<li>Tesla &mdash; $1.4T valuation with $95B in revenue</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no denying it,&rdquo; says Davis. &ldquo;SpaceX is pricey.&rdquo;
The market data firm PitchBook says the $1.75 trillion valuation is &ldquo;not so crazy &ndash; under certain conditions.&rdquo; PitchBook forecasts SpaceX will generate $150 billion in annual revenue by 2040.
&ldquo;That means SpaceX IPO investors are paying ~12x revenue on numbers 15 years away.&rdquo;
Again, we still don&rsquo;t have SpaceX&rsquo;s financials. &ldquo;But if SpaceX isn't forecasting to hit $150B in revenue until 2040,&rdquo; says Davis...
&ldquo;&hellip;I'm running (not walking) away from this IPO.&rdquo;
[Editor&rsquo;s note: As this e-letter hits your inbox, James Altucher and Ray Blanco have convened an urgent briefing for Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network subscribers. &ldquo;Something is happening with the SpaceX IPO that I don't think most people fully appreciate yet,&rdquo; says James &mdash; &ldquo;and I'm not willing to let it pass without saying something.&rdquo;
If you&rsquo;re a current subscriber and you&rsquo;re missing the live event, watch your inbox later today for a link to the replay and transcript.]
More to come about SpaceX in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, we pivot to the worst of times&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" />War&rsquo;s Almost Over (Not)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Well&hellip; your editor&rsquo;s skepticism yesterday about the &ldquo;War&rsquo;s Almost Over&rdquo; narrative has been vindicated.
As you&rsquo;re probably aware, the president drove a stake into the heart of that narrative during his televised speech last night &ndash; begging many questions along the way.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1sWdWFnOHInpjUuo5goxKT/1e637e21e63bd3ab059f8afa2795df9c/FMF-Issue-040226_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The reaction in the oil price was instantaneous. Here&rsquo;s a 24-hour chart of West Texas Intermediate starting at noon EDT yesterday.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6d1ja5R4d2rywOq1pndhxn/db6892bf0ccdc7f386041db0095edf3e/4.2_5_Bullets_Chart.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Stock futures, meanwhile, took an immediate nosedive &ndash; and the S&amp;P 500 tumbled 1.5% on the open at 9:30 a.m. EDT this morning.
Then around an hour later came a headline&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/uy5eNE5tmpxqftcYfyMYL/8b32b4bff06331b6889c0dd7e1d4e97c/FMF-Issue-040226_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
It&rsquo;s Oman that sits on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran. In response to the news, the S&amp;P leaped higher &ndash; erasing all of those early losses &ndash; while the oil price pulled back a bit.
Too bad nobody bothered to actually read the statement from Iran&rsquo;s semi-official Tasnim news agency more carefully: &ldquo;An Iranian deputy foreign minister said Tehran and Oman are working toward establishing a joint protocol to ensure safe maritime passage through the Strait of Hormuz in the post-war period&hellip; He noted that Iran is currently in a state of war and that it is unrealistic to expect peacetime rules to apply under such conditions.&rdquo; [Emphasis ours]
At last check, the S&amp;P is down about a quarter-percent on the day. The losses in the Dow and the Nasdaq are a little steeper while the small-cap Russell 2000 is in the green.
As you can see above, the reaction to the Iran-Oman talks was more muted in the oil market: As we get closer to hitting &ldquo;send&rdquo; on today&rsquo;s edition, a barrel of West Texas Intermdiate still fetches just under $111.
Precious metals sold off hard on the president&rsquo;s speech &ndash; gold off $105 on the day at $4,652 and silver down three bucks to $71.85. In the bigger picture, gold is still in conoslidation mode after that hyperbolic move in January.
Bitcoin is back below $67,000 but Ethereum is still comfortably over $2,000.
With the markets closed tomorrow for Good Friday, there&rsquo;s an additional day in which Washington can escalate the conflict and hope that the market reaction come Sunday night and Monday will be more muted than it would be otherwise.
But let&rsquo;s look beyond the next three days and into the next three weeks&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" />The Next Three Weeks
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Wow! That was awful. Was Trump sedated? His monotone, delusional delivery reminded me of the character Dustin Hoffman played in Rainman,&rdquo; writes the former CIA officer Larry Johnson on his blog.
Only Trump&rsquo;s most fervent devotees like Mark Levin and the New York Post editorial board thought it was a good speech. Even partisans like Alex Jones are turning into panicans&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5EVmDTtqrDNzA1DqOrPVEP/5ffde46c860810ce5fe0697fdc3ba96d/FMF-Issue-040226_5_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Trump plowed no new territory,&rdquo; Johnson continues. &ldquo;Instead, he provided a Reader&rsquo;s Digest summary of his recent Truth Social posts&hellip; i.e., Iran is defeated, the Iranian Navy and Air Force are destroyed, victory is ours, but we&rsquo;re going to bomb the hell out of them over the next three weeks.&rdquo;
In that same time frame, &ldquo;Iran will continue to degrade and demolish the US bases and equipment that is in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.&rdquo;
The president also repeated his previous threat to immiserate everyday Iranians by taking out the country&rsquo;s power grid.
Johnson again: &ldquo;If he does that, along with Israel, Iran will turn off the lights in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait.
&ldquo;Iran&rsquo;s ability to do this is a direct consequence of the depletion of the US air defense systems &mdash; i.e., the Patriot missile batteries and the THAAD. Iran also will retain its choke hold on the Strait of Hormuz &mdash; even if the US decides to put troops on Kharg Island or some other piece of Iranian territory.&rdquo;
This outcome is not yet priced into markets.
Leave aside the news: Just from a chart standpoint, if West Texas Intermediate breaks above $120&hellip; it&rsquo;s blue sky all the way to $160.
➢ By the way, just putting this on the record: The headlines this week about Trump wanting to exit NATO? That&rsquo;s because after Iran, the war hawks have their sights set on Turkey next. (Turkey has belonged to NATO since 1952). Like Iran, Turkey never did anything to threaten Americans in America &ndash; but it does stand in the way of Israel&rsquo;s aim for hegemony in the Middle East.
<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" />Great Moments In Advertising
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The government of Scotland has beclowned itself with a new ad campaign promoting bus tours in the Highlands&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7xlQg8mTbj7HfYndMDqFhh/181ccf2d7ec9f218202cf3668db0c1c6/FMF-Issue-040226_6_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The scenery is breathtaking&hellip; wondrous&hellip; and not Scotland.
&ldquo;Eagle-eyed social media users noticed that the road had bright green crash barriers and a green bus - sights which are not familiar in the north of Scotland,&rdquo; reports the BBC.
&ldquo;They suggested it appeared to be the Changbai Mountain area near the border of China and North Korea.
&ldquo;Transport Scotland confirmed that an incorrect image was provided by an external marketing agency and has now been removed from communication packs.&rdquo;
The head of Scotland&rsquo;s leading tourism nonprofit is appalled at how the government threw its ad agency under the (tour) bus. "Blaming a marketing agency is shameless,&rdquo; says Willie Cameron, director of Highland Tourism.
"Why did nobody in the marketing team at Transport Scotland ask where the picture was taken?"
Why indeed. Betcha nobody pays for this with their job&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: Wisdom From a Veteran Reader
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> After a few days of complaints from newer readers, some of our longer-term customers are chiming in and rising to our defense. To wit&hellip;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how anyone who is only paying, say, $250, for a financial newsletter can expect specific recommendations that are going to make them a bunch of cash in short order. At that price all I can reasonably expect is general commentary on market trends and some guidance on how generally to invest. Any specific recommendations are icing on the cake.
&ldquo;On the other hand, I expect to pay $1,500 or more for counsel and recommendations that are going to make me real money as a trader.
&ldquo;All that said, I do find your marketing approach (shared by many other newsletter publishers) quite obnoxious. Just tell me up front that you&rsquo;ve got another product to sell that is pricey and not for everybody but could make me a lot of money with a certain strategy or whatever, and I&rsquo;ll decide whether to subject myself to the endless sales pitch. Don&rsquo;t make me sit through endlessly repetitive hype before finally telling me what it is you&rsquo;re selling. I find that manipulative and insulting.
&ldquo;I do appreciate those companies that, after a couple minutes of the video, allow the option for reading a pdf, which I can scan in much less time and see what you&rsquo;re selling much quicker. (I can&rsquo;t recall that you do that.)
&ldquo;But I also understand that your marketing works, as I suppose my many expensive newsletter subscriptions prove! So I know you&rsquo;re not going to change your tactics just because some of us whine about them.
&ldquo;In any case, I do value your work and believe every penny I&rsquo;ve spent with Paradigm is worth it!&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thank you for the kind words.
Even our $50-a-year entry-level newsletters offer at least one investment recommendation a month. But as I said earlier this week, the plays have a months-long or even years-long timeframe &ndash; and they&rsquo;re not intended as moonshots. Moonshot plays are limited to the higher-priced advisories.
About our marketing approach: As you concede, it brought you in the door. I can relate &ndash; I was once a customer like you before deciding to make the newsletter industry my second career. (As it happens, today marks the start of my 20th year in the biz.)
As far as I know, we offer transcript options on many, though not all, of our sales presentations. As for their length, it comes back to one of the truisms of direct marketing: &ldquo;The more you tell, the more you sell.&rdquo;
A/B testing has proven it out over time. It held true in the days of printed sales letters sent via the Postal Service &ndash; and, shocking as it might seem, it still holds true in the short-attention-span TikTok era.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Right on point about Jamie Dimon,&rdquo; a reader writes after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/wartime-sacrifice">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;Do not need a lecture from a financial federal money bailout boy.&rdquo;
Another reader appreciated your editor dunking on Fed chair Jerome Powell <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/pontius-pilate-powell">the day before</a>. &ldquo;Thanks for calling out Powell as he embarks on his revisionism tour.
&ldquo;I posit that he gets away with it because memory is a vestigial organ in America. Thanks for &lsquo;exercising yours and your readers. (P.S. great comparison to Pontius Pilate in this, the holiest of weeks.)&rdquo;
Dave: Thank you. I had qualms about the subject line &ldquo;Pontius Pilate Powell&rdquo; given the proximity to Easter. I don&rsquo;t mind offending people when it comes to politics now and then &ndash; but religion is another matter!
But I ran it past our VP of Research Aaron Gentlzer, and he was fine with it. And after the issue went out, the subject line won raves from Rude Awakening editor Sean Ring, a cradle Catholic. Can&rsquo;t ask for more validation than that!

FMF-Issue-040226(Featured)

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

<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" />Wartime Sacrifice
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />This boomer billionaire has an important message for the little people about wartime sacrifice.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7pZoelxQi0xSM9RoIHQLAd/bb9c83cea6b8815778e193b6528f3281/FMF-Issue-040126_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Say this much: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has balls to go with his billions.
He oversees a bank that was <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2015/06/03/the-impunity-of-the-market-riggers/">lavished with bailouts</a> in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis&hellip; <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2021/07/21/economic-warfare-update-pipeline-and-tanker-edition/#315">copped pleas to five federal felony counts</a> between 2014&ndash;2020 (three of them involving market-rigging)&hellip; and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/jpm-epstein-and-the-virgin-islands">conducted business with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein</a> long after supposedly dumping him as a client.
A real model citizen there.
So yes, Mr. Dimon, please tell us in flyover country how we should be grateful for our $4-a-gallon gasoline to transport us to the second and third jobs we need to to make ends meet!
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />As it happens, JPM shows up on a new &ldquo;hit list&rdquo; of U.S. corporations supposedly in the crosshairs of Iran&rsquo;s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The IRGC issued a statement yesterday after U.S.-Israeli airstrikes killed a member of the IRGC&rsquo;s general staff. We&rsquo;ve seen a couple of translations. This one seems reliable&hellip;
<blockquote>From now on, for every assassination, an American company will be destroyed.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Our repeated warnings about the necessity to stop terrorist operations were ignored, and today, following your terrorist attacks and those of your Israeli allies, several Iranian citizens were martyred.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Since the main element in designing and tracking assassination targets are American ICT [information and communication technology] and AI companies, in response to these crimes, from now on the main and effective institutions involved in terrorist operations will be our legitimate targets.</blockquote>
<blockquote>We advise the employees of these institutions to immediately leave their workplaces to preserve their lives. Also, residents of areas around these terrorist companies in all countries of the region, within a one-kilometer radius, should leave their homes and workplaces and seek safe places.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Companies actively involved in terrorist designs will be subject to retaliatory action for every assassination.</blockquote>
And then came a list of 18 companies. And a deadline&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1unlrxSSDHeh8SkV488GbV/ce9a2aa745fd1b371ef534658d0c3e13/FMF-Issue-040126_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
That deadline translates to 12:30 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast. In other words, it&rsquo;s already passed by the time you&rsquo;re reading this.
&ldquo;We are taking steps to safeguard and support our workers and facilities in the Middle East and are actively monitoring the situation,&rdquo; said a spokesperson for Intel &mdash; the first company on the list.
CNBC sought comment from every company on the list. JPM declined.
For whatever it&rsquo;s worth, social media is rife with reports of short-dated put options on the companies in question, expiring today.
<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 &ldquo;War Is Almost Over&rdquo; Rally
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />The narrative in corporate media today is that oil is down and stocks are up because the war is almost over.
&ldquo;Stocks are higher to start the month as optimism around Iran war ending grows,&rdquo; says a CNBC notification.
Donald Trump will deliver a big televised speech at 9:00 p.m. EDT tonight. Ahead of the speech he declared once again that Tehran is asking for a ceasefire. Once more, Tehran denies it. (Trump said the ceasefire request came from Iran&rsquo;s &ldquo;new&rdquo; president; Iran has had the same president for nearly two years.)
This much we know for sure: Comparing the enemy with Nazis doesn&rsquo;t seem like the sort of rhetoric you engage in when an end to the conflict is at hand&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/241p4LU06BiUQjTMfjPFz3/a7d71fba2d4d192d6548a01d7e3d6bd5/FMF-Issue-040126_3_.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" />But hope springs eternal: A barrel of West Texas Intermediate is back under $100, sinking toward $99 in fact.
And the major U.S. stock indexes are solidly in the green once more today &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 up nearly 1% at 6,589. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is a little weaker, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s a little stronger.
&ldquo;We need to watch to see if this recovery is the real deal, or just a short-lived relief rally,&rdquo; says Trading Desk editor Greg Guenthner. &ldquo;Now that we&rsquo;ve seen a sharp move off the lows, we&rsquo;ll need to see continued upside follow through to confirm that this is indeed a significant low.
&ldquo;What does that entail? For starters, I&rsquo;d like to see continued afternoon strength in the averages. We need buyers stepping in during power hour (between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m.) to continue to push stocks higher into the close. Gap-up moves followed by late-day reversals aren&rsquo;t going to cut it &mdash; and could likely lead to more chop. Every day doesn&rsquo;t need to be like yesterday. But in order to build investor confidence again, we can&rsquo;t have a bunch of ugly retracements.&rdquo;
The precious metals rebound is gathering momentum &mdash; gold up another $100 and only $16 away from $4,800, while silver has crested $75.
Crypto is trying to get traction, Bitcoin approaching $69,000 and Ethereum back over $2,100.
The big economic number of the day is the ISM Manufacturing Index: Chalk up three-straight monthly readings over 50, suggesting a growing factory sector. The March number is 52.7 &mdash; better than expected and indeed the strongest performance since August 2022.
<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" />War Disruptions
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;The Chinese economy appears better positioned amid the oil supply shock than its global peers,&rdquo; says a new report from Goldman Sachs. Better than the United States, too.
The report says crude oil and liquefied natural gas made up 28% of China&rsquo;s primary energy consumption during 2024 &mdash; &ldquo;one of the lowest in the world.&rdquo; Meanwhile&hellip; nuclear, hydro, wind and solar make up 40% &mdash; up from 26% a decade ago.
What&rsquo;s more, if China&rsquo;s crude imports fell to zero, its crude reserves are good for well over three months of consumption (assuming government reserve figures are accurate).
Put it all together and Goldman&rsquo;s economists figure the supply shock wlll knock about 0.2 percentage points off China&rsquo;s GDP growth &mdash; compared with 0.4 for the United States.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Once more, the mainstream is playing catch-up on a major theme &mdash; the helium shortage resulting from Iran&rsquo;s selective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
&ldquo;The global supply of helium &mdash; the natural-gas byproduct better known for keeping party balloons aloft &mdash; is being squeezed by a halt in natural-gas exports from Qatar, the source of about a third of the world&rsquo;s total,&rdquo; The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Gee, you don&rsquo;t say: Paradigm natural resource pro Matt Badiali <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/one-noble-gas-no-substitute">tipped us off here in </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/one-noble-gas-no-substitute">5 Bullets</a> almost two weeks earlier &mdash; including the impact on everything from semiconductors to MRI scanners.
There is one tidbit in the Journal article that advances the story: Helium has a limited shelf life. Because stored liquid helium absorbs heat, it eventually turns back into gas and can escape its containers. That process starts between 35&ndash;48 days after helium goes into liquid storage.
Clock&rsquo;s ticking&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" />Artemis, SpaceX and a Slew of Space ETFs
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />We desperately need something fun and celebratory. Fortunately, as an 8-year-old Floridian tells the BBC, &ldquo;People going up to the moon is kind of cool.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5j5psYOProPnELlHh0kHlW/c8d015b0122b3298abecacdd6ea8a6fc/FMF-Issue-040126_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
About 400,000 people will be jamming Florida&rsquo;s Space Coast for NASA&rsquo;s launch attempt of Artemis II this evening at 6:24 p.m. EDT. On a 10-day test flight, four astronauts will aim to fly around the moon and perhaps even travel farther from Earth than anyone has before.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />About six hours ahead of the scheduled launch, Elon Musk &mdash; always with a knack for timing &mdash; filed the IPO for SpaceX.
It&rsquo;s one of those &ldquo;confidential&rdquo; IPO filings &mdash; which means we learn about it only because someone tells the media the paperwork has been sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That&rsquo;s allowed for &ldquo;emerging growth companies&rdquo; under the JOBS Act of 2012.
Thus, the contents of the filing &mdash; especially the company&rsquo;s financial performance &mdash; won&rsquo;t become public until 15 days before the roadshow in which companies planning to go public try to woo potential investors.
(Although in the case of SpaceX, Musk is looking to have potential investors come to him &mdash; visiting the company&rsquo;s facilities such as its Starbase near Brownsville, Texas.)
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that SpaceX hopes to raise as much as $80 billion with this offering. The company could be valued at $1.25 trillion.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />The space buzz is such that &ldquo;three new space ETFs launched last month,&rdquo; says Paradigm tech specialist Ray Blanco.
March 5 brought the launch of MARS by Roundhill. Then came VanEck with an ETF with the ticker JEDI. And finally Tema debuted NASA &mdash; the first space ETF with direct SpaceX exposure.
&ldquo;The ETF product cycle is one of the most reliable institutional confirmation signals in all of finance,&rdquo; Ray says. &ldquo;Fund companies don't build dedicated vehicles around a theme unless the allocator class &mdash; the pension funds, the wealth advisers, the endowments &mdash; has decided the sector is durable enough to justify permanent capital flows.
&ldquo;And the mechanism is self-reinforcing. Every new space ETF becomes a passive bid underneath the stocks in that fund.
&ldquo;Money comes in, managers buy the holdings. It's mechanical. NASA launches with SpaceX as the hook, which pulls in a whole new wave of retail and adviser capital. And those investors discover the public pure plays sitting right underneath &mdash; names that may be still relatively small-cap and thinly traded.
&ldquo;That's a structural supply/demand imbalance in the making. Wall Street isn't debating whether the space economy is real anymore. The machinery is already in motion.&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: &ldquo;Just What Did I Pay For?&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />We heard from still more readers who want to get a thing or two off their chests, following our mailbag sections yesterday and the day before.
&ldquo;When I signed up for Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence, I thought I was getting some information that would help identify some companies that the investor may want to consider. Instead all I get is someone pitching over a long redundant video that urges me to buy someone else&rsquo;s subscription annually, usually at $1,500.
&ldquo;Unless I am missing something I really don&rsquo;t know what I paid my $250 for.&rdquo;
Dave responds: If all you&rsquo;re getting are sales pitches for our high-end advisories, something is seriously wrong.
For a $250 pro-level subscription to Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence, you should be getting monthly issues complete with at least one investment recommendation (often two or three)&hellip; updates at least twice a week from Jim and his team&hellip; twice-a-month briefings for pro-level subscribers only&hellip; and regular conference calls for pro-level subscribers only.
I&rsquo;m sure there are more benefits &mdash; those are just the ones off the top of my head. If you&rsquo;re missing out on any of those things, please get in touch with our customer care team. <a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/contact-us?vid2=f7584bb8d0f8b4ef03ea4a2a79cb9ffebd5601637dfb4b221b21055bfe10aa56fb9565c7166c12ea93687031263ed97489aead8f437e4ddd1cfcbcd5e6a6bb06&amp;utm_campaign=FMF_Issue_01.08.26_&amp;utm_source=Iterable&amp;itbl_templateId=21337652&amp;itbl_campaignId=16396665&amp;utm_medium=Email">Use this web form</a> or call 1-844-731-0984.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />And to the reader who accused us of &ldquo;pump and dump&rdquo;... we never engage in such practices.
If you bought a stock recommended in Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network and the share price happens to be down from the time of recommendation, follow the guidance from James and his team.
If they still have conviction in the stock&rsquo;s long-term viability, it will be listed as either a &ldquo;buy&rdquo; or &ldquo;hold&rdquo; on the portfolio page. If they personally hold a position in that stock, we disclose that up-front. More to your point, if they believe it&rsquo;s time to sell, they will tell you first before selling their own position.
That&rsquo;s the policy at all our publications &mdash; because it&rsquo;s the only honest way to do business.

FMF-Issue-040126(Featured)

Wartime Sacrifice

<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" />Pontius Pilate Powell
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Fed chief Jerome Powell has begun his farewell tour by saying everything that happens from here on is NOT. HIS. FAULT.
From the front page of today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal&hellip;
<blockquote>Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Monday the central bank is inclined to hold rates steady and look past the energy shock from the war in Iran but cautioned that it might not be able to sit on the sidelines if rising prices shift the public&rsquo;s expectations about inflation over time.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Powell, speaking to students at Harvard University, laid out the textbook case for patience: Energy disruptions tend to be short-lived, and monetary policy works too slowly to counteract them in real-time. He added a critical caveat, however, by noting how five years of above-target inflation made it harder to assume the public would simply shrug off another round of rising prices.</blockquote>
<blockquote>&ldquo;You can have a series of these supply shocks and that can lead the public generally &mdash; businesses, price setters, households &mdash; to start expecting higher inflation over time. Why wouldn&rsquo;t they?&rdquo; Powell said.</blockquote>
On the one hand, Powell is right. Monetary policy can&rsquo;t offset rising energy prices. It&rsquo;s that old saying about how the Fed can&rsquo;t print barrels of oil.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But c&rsquo;mon. It&rsquo;s plain as day. Powell is using the Iran war as cover to slough off responsibility for every boneheaded decision on his watch for the last eight years &mdash; decisions you&rsquo;re living with right now.
Powell has about six weeks left as Fed chair &mdash; maybe more if there&rsquo;s a struggle in Congress over the nomination of his successor.
Time flies: The narrative surrounding Powell when he ascended to the chairmanship in 2018 was that he&rsquo;d be different from his predecessors.
Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke? They were haunted by the 1930s and the Great Depression &mdash; which is why they printed money to a fare-thee-well and kept short-term interest rates pinned near zero for seven years once the 2008 financial crisis reached critical mass.
You wanted safe, reliable income in T-bills or CDs? Go pound sand they said &mdash; we&rsquo;ve got to do a solid for our cronies on Wall Street.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Powell, we were told, was haunted instead by the inflation of the 1970s. He&rsquo;d be a more responsible steward of monetary policy.
Powell raised short-term interest rates in baby steps for the first several months of his term &mdash; until Wall Street threw a hissy fit at the end of 2018, sending the S&amp;P 500 down 20%.
And that was the end of his first rate-raising cycle. It went down in history as the &ldquo;Powell pivot.&rdquo;
He started cutting rates a few months later. Then he started printing money anew in the fall of 2019 amid a crisis in financial instruments called repos, or repurchase agreements.
Once more the Fed was riding to the rescue &mdash; fixing a crisis made on Wall Street, at the expense of everyday Americans.
Coming barely a decade after the 2008 bank bailouts, there was real potential for a torches-and-pitchforks moment &mdash; <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2022/03/11/countdown-to-cover-up/">until COVID conveniently came along</a>.
The Fed could bail out the system once more &mdash; this time with the excuse of You don&rsquo;t want a financial collapse on top of a pandemic, do you?
The rest of the story follows in Bullet No. 2&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" />Powell&rsquo;s Inflationary Legacy
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the 2020s, the guy who supposedly was haunted by the 1970s started following the Fed&rsquo;s &rsquo;70s playbook, page by page.
Powell&rsquo;s mad money printing from 2020&ndash;2022 dwarfed anything Yellen and Bernanke had done in the wake of 2008. Here&rsquo;s a chart of the Fed&rsquo;s balance sheet, with both recessions highlighted in the gray bars.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2h787HQfd3A2QYmRvKnS2X/ab6d5db944753e23529a454ae171e626/FMF-Issue-033126-1.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Pressed throughout 2021 about the likelihood that Fed money printing would manifest as consumer price inflation &mdash; as happened in the 1970s &mdash; Powell was nonchalant.
The official inflation rate sailed higher all year &mdash; from 1.7% in February to 6.9% in November. The whole time, the word Powell invoked to describe any inflation was &ldquo;transitory&rdquo; &mdash; right up to the moment he acknowledged to the Senate Banking Committee that it might be time to &ldquo;retire transitory&rdquo; as a descriptor of how the Fed viewed consumer price rises.
To combat the mess he made, Powell embarked on an epic interest rate-raising cycle in 2022 &mdash; the steepest in over 40 years.
Yes, that did have the effect of bringing the inflation rate down from its insane 9.0% peak in mid-2022 to a range between 2.3&ndash;3.0% in the last year.
But all the price increases of 2021&ndash;22? They never reversed. They were locked in permanently.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Worse &mdash; and we can&rsquo;t emphasize this often enough &mdash; once inflation sails past 5%, it takes a decade on average to get back to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2% inflation.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/declare-your-independence-from-inflation">The historical evidence is overwhelming.</a> If you&rsquo;re hoping for a return to pre-COVID inflation levels, it probably won&rsquo;t happen until the early 2030s.
But as he saunters off into the sunset, Jay Powell has let it be known: Any inflation you experience from March 2026 onward is strictly a knock-on effect of the war and it&rsquo;s got nothing to do with him. It&rsquo;s just supply shocks fueling people&rsquo;s expectations.
Really, Pontius Pilate&rsquo;s got nothing on Jay Powell. We&rsquo;re washing our hands of this thing! Not our problem! We didn&rsquo;t start the fire!
To be sure, Powell doesn&rsquo;t bear sole responsibility for the price increases that burden you this decade. There&rsquo;s Joe Biden&hellip; Donald Trump&hellip; free-spending congresscritters of both parties&hellip;
But for Powell to point a finger at the war and dodge his share of the blame? Just revolting.
<a id="3"></a>
[Program note: This might not be the first exercise in Powell-bashing you&rsquo;ll see in our publications this week. On the Paradigm internal e-chat yesterday, a handful of us got on a roll. Byron King in particular might have a few choice words&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" />Team Trump&rsquo;s Trial Balloon
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> After hitting their highest levels since 2022, oil prices edged downward overnight thanks to a trial balloon someone in the Trump administration floated to The Wall Street Journal.
&nbsp;Back to the paper&rsquo;s front page&hellip;
<blockquote>President Trump told aides he&rsquo;s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran&rsquo;s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.</blockquote>
<blockquote>In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran&rsquo;s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said.</blockquote>
Huh. Iran never had much of a navy to begin with. As for its missile stocks, U.S. officials told Reuters this week that it&rsquo;s likely only one-third has been destroyed with certainty. Tehran is launching fewer missiles than at the outset of the war, but they&rsquo;re still hitting valuable and seemingly undefended targets.
But as for the main point, the memo-o-sphere is already weighing in&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6NdfHfj2jarVBLJcpIdbmh/393163fb059ab5b0cb57057f33814d5f/FMF-Issue-033126-2.png.jpg" alt="pub" width="540px" />
It&rsquo;s at this point we have to emphasize: Strictly speaking, the strait is not closed. It&rsquo;s a selective blockade. Tehran is letting limited traffic through, especially if it&rsquo;s oil paid for in Chinese yuan instead of U.S. dollars. And Tehran has suggested more traffic might be let through if shippers pay a fee.
All of which contrasts with the fact the strait was freely navigable before Washington and Tel Aviv launched their war.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In any event, the effect of this trial balloon on the oil price was short-lived.
Last night, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate fetched $106. When the Journal published its story online, it instantly plunged to about $101. As we write, it&rsquo;s back above $104.
Meanwhile, stocks are staging an honest-to-goodness rally &mdash; one that will likely stick through day&rsquo;s end, unlike yesterday. At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is up nearly 1.6% to 6,444. The Nasdaq is up 2%, the Dow about 1.25%. Even small caps are sharing in the cheer, the Russell 2000 up about 1.4%.
Gold might have finally broken through the $4,500 barrier that proved to be overhead resistance for about 10 days &mdash; the bid up to $4,619. And silver&rsquo;s roared over 5% higher to $73.71.
No joy for crypto, though &mdash; Bitcoin a little over $67,000 and Ethereum a little under $2,100.
<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" />Cost of War Update
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the record&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1bmUP9RND5abhYjkrWW9TZ/a7b67199cd37304a8a5cbbf369351699/FMF-Issue-033126-3.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
A month into the war, the Iran War Cost Tracker site pegs the taxpayer cost at nearly $37 billion. That&rsquo;s based on various estimates the Pentagon has informally issued either to Congress or the media &mdash; $11.3 billion the first six days, $1 billion a day after that.
Which reminds us of a peculiar line of argument coming from the administration the last 48 hours&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5xgGX06oQSyvU52XBazyKs/e76304f0b55f1f54687807b70c6f19f9/FMF-Issue-033126-4.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
According to the World Bank, Iran spent about 2% of its GDP on the military during 2024. The United States, 3.4%. Projection much?
It&rsquo;s here we&rsquo;ll remind you the previous round of forever wars in the Middle East, from 2001&ndash;2021, cost $8 trillion. And that&rsquo;s just the direct monetary cost. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/usd1-5-trillion">The prosperity we gave up along the way? And the costs to our freedoms? Incalculable</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" />Sympathy Pangs
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Yesterday&rsquo;s mailbag section brought pangs of sympathy from one reader.
&ldquo;I feel like the retiree waiting for the ticker so she has a chance to push up that $1,000 nest egg. That&rsquo;s the whole idea. Is it Dave's prerogative to determine that she should be a more conservative trader?
&ldquo;One listens to these long videos with the hope you are giving a tidbit and only get this redundant over-and-over long, drawn-out video that ends with buy something.
&ldquo;I don't remember this when I signed up with Rickards. This group has changed &mdash; not sure for the better.&rdquo;
Dave responds: I hear your frustration. Let me approach this from a different angle &mdash; because looking from the inside, I&rsquo;m not sure what&rsquo;s changed. Our MO has been the same for the nearly two decades I&rsquo;ve worked with Paradigm Press and its predecessor firms.
The entry-level publications &mdash; Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence, Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network &mdash; are where the editors usually spotlight companies with larger market caps and a risk profile that&rsquo;s suitable for someone with limited capital. The recommended hold time is usually months if not years.
The premium publications &mdash; such as Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel or Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha &mdash; frequently entail either options or microcap stocks. The profit potential is greater, usually much greater. The time frame in which those profits could materialize is shorter, sometimes much shorter.
But much bigger profits in a much shorter time frame inevitably involves a greater level of risk.
In the case of our current campaign for Microcap Millionaire&hellip; it would be the height of irresponsibility for us to recommend a company this size to over 200,000 Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network readers. Doing so would artificially pump up the share price &mdash; only to have it sink back to Earth in short order.
Again&hellip; the idea is that you have a good experience with an entry-level newsletter, racking up gains that then allow you to step up to a higher level of service, amplifying and accelerating those gains. That&rsquo;s how we get happy long-term customers. Win-win!

FMF-Issue-033126-Featured

Pontius Pilate Powell

<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" />Diminishing Returns
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Ummm&hellip; Cause and effect?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3gHOk2CyzKtWZbOl63RKMO/2ba30d8e8803ab32b19f90de8338d260/FMF-Issue-032726_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5M0bLvxhg0zfOh1hPjPEsx/b54ea2a3c86686f783492d6b575e11b5/FMF-Issue-032726_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Shortly after the market closed yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform: &ldquo;As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant Destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time.&rdquo; He said talks are &ldquo;ongoing&rdquo; and &ldquo;going very well.&rdquo;
So here&rsquo;s a pithy summary of how the situation has evolved since Trump&rsquo;s initial announcement last Saturday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/14yRBM4u3US5MyGlzFoGxq/8964493649bb5c2fd98b252e8125ac3e/FMF-Issue-032726_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
It&rsquo;s been hard to keep up, no doubt. Recent days have brought a whole new meaning to the term &ldquo;headline-driven market&rdquo;&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4QuWWIVGO12v1WirPnlXqn/41d39c405c065f8fc0a33f79c60b8d78/FMF-Issue-032726_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
We&rsquo;ll get to today&rsquo;s follow-on action in stocks momentarily. But what about oil?
If the president&rsquo;s objective is to once more talk down the oil price, yesterday afternoon&rsquo;s announcement didn&rsquo;t work.
A wag on X going by the handle &ldquo;professional hog groomer&rdquo; put together the following chart of West Texas Intermediate this month, annotated with Trump Truth Social posts. (Click to enlarge&hellip;)
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/mBOm6lY8ICdlmi8hOnNho/8f13d80144d47839200094664a7538d7/FMF-Issue-032726_Enlarged_.jpg" alt="Click here to learn more" width="540px" /> <a href="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/enlarged-images/FMF-Issue-032726(Enlarged).jpg">Click here to Expand</a>
Diminishing returns, for sure.
Checking our screens, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up over three bucks on the day at $97.78 &mdash; the highest since the president&rsquo;s post about &ldquo;productive conversations&rdquo; with Iran on Monday.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And while oil is rising, stocks are falling &mdash; again, presumably not the intended result.
Yesterday the S&amp;P 500 cracked below the 6,500 level that had been a floor going back more than six months &mdash; closing at 6,477. At last check, it&rsquo;s down another three-quarters of a percent to 6,426.
For the moment, the S&amp;P and the Nasdaq Composite have avoided entering &ldquo;correction&rdquo; territory &mdash; a 10% drop from their most recent peak. Not so, however, for the more concentrated Nasdaq-100 and the Dow. And the small-cap Russell 2000 crossed that barrier a week ago.
Still&hellip; opportunity is there to be found. This morning, readers of The Situation Report booked 72% gains playing call options on the chemical firm Olin Corp. And Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence booked 30% gains on the energy name APA Corp.
The big economic number of the day is consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan. It sank big-time from 56.6 in February to 53.3 in March &mdash; a bigger drop than Wall Street economists were expecting.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Also not reacting the way the president would like &mdash; the bond market.
The financial corners of social media are chockablock with observations that each of Trump&rsquo;s adjusted Iran deadlines coincided with the yield on a 10-year Treasury note rising to 4.4%.
But while the yield pulled back after Monday&rsquo;s &ldquo;productive conversations&rdquo; announcement, that wasn&rsquo;t the reaction this time. The yield popped to nearly 4.5% this morning &mdash; although it&rsquo;s since pulled back to 4.4% on the nose.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In a welcome reversal for precious metals bulls, gold and silver are rallying strong to end the week.
Gold is up over $150 or 3.5% &mdash; back over $4,500. And silver has rallied over three bucks, nearly 5%, to back over $71.
Still, gold was at $5,200 four weeks ago today, just before the first U.S.-Israeli airstrikes.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;The declining price of gold and some gold sales by some central banks do not tell you much about gold,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards.
&ldquo;What it says is that there is a global dollar shortage underway. The world needs dollars to pay for much higher priced energy and to cover losses and margin calls arising from the private credit crisis. In addition, stocks are declining sharply, which gives rise to margin calls for leveraged positions.
&ldquo;In short, the whole world wants cash.
&ldquo;When you want cash and you don't have it, you have to sell something to get it. The two most liquid assets are gold and Treasury notes and bills. You see gold being sold (lower gold prices) and Treasuries being sold (higher interest rates) to raise cash to cover the dollar shortage.
&ldquo;There's hard evidence for this in the fact that bank dealers are increasing reverse repurchase agreements (meaning they're lending cash to needy borrowers in exchange for Treasury note collateral) and the TIC report, which shows foreign sovereign holdings of Treasuries in decline.
&ldquo;Or, as Tom Cruise would say, &lsquo;Show me the money!&rsquo;
&ldquo;This will get much worse, although I expect gold to find a bottom in the coming days.&rdquo;
➢ Lest we overlook it, crypto is moving in the opposite direction from precious metals. Bitcoin is in danger of breaking below $66,000 for the first time in nearly a month. And Ethereum has cracked beneath $2,000.
<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" />Other Notes From the War
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The Washington Post is confirming something we first told you over two weeks ago.
&ldquo;The U.S. military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials and prompted internal discussions about how to make more available, said people familiar with the matter.&rdquo;
Back on March 10, Jim Rickards warned in this space: &ldquo;The U.S. and Israel are running low on offensive and defensive bombs and missiles.
&ldquo;This is the result of the massive bombing attacks on Iran, the need to fire thousands of anti-missiles to shoot down thousands of incoming drones and missiles, the fact that the U.S. has allowed its military industrial capacity to atrophy and the large number of weapons wasted in Ukraine.
&ldquo;U.S. industrial output of 800 cruise missiles per year cannot keep up with Israel and the U.S. launching 100 per week. Ships need to reprovision. Repairs cannot be neglected. Diego Garcia is days away from the battlespace. The U.S. will be badly stretched.&rdquo;
The Post article says Tomahawks cost $3.6 million each.
Hmmm&hellip; A generation ago when Bill Clinton was firing his &ldquo;Monica missiles,&rdquo; Tomahawks cost $1.2 million. Even if you adjust for inflation, the cost to the taxpayer should have &ldquo;only&rdquo; doubled by now &mdash; not tripled.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Iran&rsquo;s oil exports have not collapsed and are fetching much higher prices than before the war,&rdquo; says a report from the OilPrice website.
Iran now has sole access to the Strait of Hormuz. Thus, its volume of crude exports is steady &mdash; and it&rsquo;s collecting a higher price.
Per Bloomberg calculations, Iran has earned $139 million a day so far in March &mdash; up from $115 million in February.
<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 War Enters Week Five Tomorrow
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> If Mr. Market isn&rsquo;t buying the president&rsquo;s latest pronouncement, maybe that&rsquo;s because of what&rsquo;s become a familiar pattern &mdash; big U.S. military action while the market is closed Friday night and Saturday, so that the market reaction is muted come Sunday night and Monday.
Sure enough&hellip; &ldquo;The Pentagon is developing military options for a &lsquo;final blow&rsquo; in Iran that could include the use of ground forces and a massive bombing campaign,&rdquo; says a new dispatch from Axios reporter (and former Israeli intelligence officer) Barak Ravid.
The possibilities include an invasion or blockade of Kharg Island, Iran&rsquo;s main oil export hub. (This is the third Friday we&rsquo;ve had to bring up Kharg Island, just in case something goes down over the weekend.)
Ravid&rsquo;s report doesn&rsquo;t put a timeline on things. But as we mentioned earlier this week, Trump is skipping out on a previous engagement scheduled for tonight &mdash; a charity fundraiser in Palm Beach. He&rsquo;s also missing the CPAC gathering in Dallas for the first time in a decade.
At the same time, the usual suspects who&rsquo;d been braying for this war since the start of Trump&rsquo;s second term are now pulling the ol&rsquo; bait-and-switch.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5gxn0bzUmtZdWt67rL1AZE/7fed0f4bb37549a06d7579221bd6c80f/FMF-Issue-032726_6_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The Strait of Hormuz was free before Washington and Tel Aviv launched this war &mdash; but why quibble over details?
By the way, at age 42 Ben Shapiro is now eligible to serve under the U.S. Army&rsquo;s recruiting rules that were relaxed this week &mdash; up from the previous age limit of 35. Just sayin&rsquo;...
<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" />No Internet, No Funds
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It seems Russians are starting to revert to a world without digital payments &mdash; or, for that matter, the internet.
We worry about such things in this space now and then &mdash; internet shutdowns by governments, which have the effect of shutting down most non-cash payments.
<a href="https://5minforecast.com/2023/03/07/shock-therapy-total-surveillance/">India has been in the vanguard for the last decade</a> &mdash; but we haven&rsquo;t forgotten what the late Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) once said: &ldquo;Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its internet in case of war and we need to have that here too.&rdquo;
Which brings us to current events in Russia. From a report by the Singaporean outlet SBS News&hellip;
<blockquote>Pagers, walkie-talkies and portable radios have reportedly been flying off the shelves of Moscow after the city's roughly 13 million residents were hit with week-long internet disruptions, which some believe could be part of the Kremlin's trial of a nationwide internet censorship system.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The blackout, which was first reported on 5 March, occurred initially in some out suburbs in the capital, Moscow, before later spreading through the city's downtown areas.</blockquote>
<blockquote>During the disruption, many foreign websites were blocked on mobile phones, while online government services, top banks and taxi apps also stopped working.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Russian media outlet Kommersant estimated that a five-day shutdown cost the city's businesses between $54 million and $89 million.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Shutdowns were also later reported in Saint Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.</blockquote>
It appears that broadband access has been unaffected so far &mdash; just mobile. Thing is, many service businesses rely on the wireless network to process card and digital payments. So they were out of luck.
For the same reason, many parking meters were disabled &mdash; and even ATMs. (Want cash to circumvent the outage? Too bad&hellip;) Of course, ride-sharing apps were disabled and folks reverted to hailing taxis.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The Russian authorities are justifying the shutdowns on the grounds that they need to disable incoming drone attacks from Ukraine. But everyday Russians suspect more sinister motives.
The article continues: &ldquo;There have been reports the mobile internet blackout has come as Russia tests a so-called &lsquo;whitelist&rsquo; system, which would permit access to government-approved websites, apps and services. Moscow officials have reportedly said previously it would include &lsquo;all resources needed for life.&rsquo;
&ldquo;But many observers expect such a system could cost Russians access to the global internet.&rdquo;
No wonder walkie-talkies and portable radios are in demand now.
Oh, road maps too&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: Toilet Paper Shortages
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Geez, this has been a heavy edition of 5 Bullets, especially for a Friday. Let&rsquo;s try to inject some levity before we go.
Our closing bullet in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/elon-musks-very-busy-week">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a> about toilet paper hoarding in Japan &mdash; and our recollection of a similar episode in this country during the 1970s &mdash; brought forth this comment from a longtime reader&hellip;
&ldquo;OMG! I've just returned from Costco with three cases of TP! The market might not be treating me well, BUT I've got TP!!!
&ldquo;I remember Covid. I also remember the oil embargo in the &rsquo;70s&hellip; LOL! Have a good weekend.&rdquo;
Another reader was more reflective about supply chain snags &mdash; but I&rsquo;m pretty sure he was also invoking the toilet paper thing&hellip;
&ldquo;We Americans are such an insular, uninformed and miseducated bunch. We are conditioned to just consume knowing not the source of our food or products.
&ldquo;At least your readers will know why they&rsquo;re rubbing their backsides as the blowback from this boondoggle washes ashore.
&ldquo;Thanking you and the Paradigm team for all you do to inform, enlighten and educate macro-wise.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thanking you likewise &mdash; and all of our readers &mdash; for your patronage and trust.

April 6 Desk Calendar and Classic White Clock on Green Background. 

FMF-Issue-032726(6)

Trump’s 10-Day Deadline

<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" />Elon Musk&rsquo;s Very Busy Week
<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 a busy few days for Elon Musk. In no particular order, the following things have taken place&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Musk offered to pay TSA workers for the duration of the current dispute between the White House and Congress over Homeland Security funding. The White House said no &mdash; in part because SpaceX&rsquo;s status as a federal contractor might lead to someone challenging the arrangement in court</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Musk is demanding a judge in Delaware step aside from a shareholder lawsuit against Tesla &mdash; claiming the judge &ldquo;supported&rdquo; a post on LinkedIn that poked fun at him</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>After OpenAI announced it&rsquo;s junking its Sora video-creation platform, Musk said he&rsquo;s &ldquo;doubling down&rdquo; on video at xAI. &rdquo;The next Grok Imagine release will be epic.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Oh, and yesterday Musk very publicly shot down a plan announced by one of his top lieutenants at X &mdash; aimed at cutting cut off the revenue flow for overseas users who are constantly s***posting about U.S. politics for clicks.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4pRwXMrA0C0Fp0N0FLKVlG/1f029d52e0fe03f94392ae75024df5af/FMF-Issue-032626-1.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" /> Also yesterday, Tesla dropped a new video about its Optimus robot &mdash; aimed mostly at attracting more tech talent to work on the project ahead of mass production this summer.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/577aT2HnKrjTzwOawYQTdp/0678e845ad405ff7e9aad56072edf017/FMF-Issue-032626-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
"We are getting very close to the human functionality and form factor," says a current employee in the video. Tesla released postings for over 100 Optimus-adjacent jobs.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And none of this even accounts for SpaceX&rsquo;s pending IPO.
As mentioned here yesterday, the firm might file its IPO prospectus as early as this week &mdash; what&rsquo;s shaping up to be the biggest IPO in history. Smaller space-oriented firms that are already publicly traded basked in the glow &mdash; Firefly Aerospace and Rocket Lab both rising over 10%.
&ldquo;The SpaceX IPO will tell the world this is a trillion-dollar market,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s tech investing specialist Ray Blanco &mdash; in attendance this week at the Satellite 2026 conference in Washington, D.C. And not just the obvious applications. &ldquo;Everyone is planning on space compute and space data centers.&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" />&ldquo;Irrational Optimism&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Irrational optimism&rdquo; is the word of the day at CERAWeek &mdash; an annual gathering of the oil industry&rsquo;s movers and shakers in Houston. So says Karim Fawaz, an analyst with S&amp;P Global.
As Fawaz sees it, Donald Trump&rsquo;s jawboning about the progress of the war is doing an effective job of keeping a lid on the oil price.
Yesterday was a case in point, with Trump&rsquo;s remarks about Iranian leaders being ready to talk. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate tumbled 2% to $90.48 &mdash; even though word was already arriving from Tehran that the mullahs rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal from Washington.
Writing on X, Fawaz chalks it up to normalcy bias &mdash; and dread. &ldquo;The alternative is so daunting to think about, with consequences so grave, that many are choosing optimism even without a solid foundation.&rdquo;
But now, with the president telling Tehran to &ldquo;get serious soon, before it is too late,&rdquo; crude is up nearly four bucks today to $94.28.
The action in crude both yesterday and today is mirrored in the major U.S. stock indexes: At last check the S&amp;P 500 has given up all of yesterday&rsquo;s gains and then some, down more than three-quarters of a percent to 6,539. The Dow&rsquo;s losses are more modest, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s steeper.
Too, with the war now about to enter its fifth week, Mr. Market might be tumbling to the phenomenon we&rsquo;ve cited regularly, captured by the remark of a cynic on X we cited Tuesday: &ldquo;The pattern is consistent: escalate on Fridays [in the evening] when energy markets are shut, pivot to dovish talk on Mondays to carry the market through the week.&rdquo;
Precious metals, you ask? Not pretty &mdash; gold down 1.5% to $4,437 and silver getting clobbered 4%, now $68.26. The floor on gold is $4,100 &mdash; a level last seen in November and tested briefly on Monday.
Crypto is stuck in the mud, Bitcoin just under $69,000 and Ethereum at $2,067.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Lest we forget, jitters remain in the bond market.
On the heels of a lousy auction of 2-year Treasury notes Tuesday, the government auctioned 5-year notes yesterday. Once again, demand was tepid at best &mdash; pushing the yield up to 3.98%.
Checking the benchmark 10-year Treasury, it&rsquo;s approaching 4.39% &mdash; once again testing highs that go back to last summer. Uncle Sam&rsquo;s borrowing costs are going nowhere but up.
That said, there&rsquo;s no panic in the bond market. The MOVE Index &mdash; a measure of volatility for bonds similar to the VIX for stocks &mdash; sits at 97.6. Real panic doesn&rsquo;t set in until the MOVE approaches 140.
<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" />Gas Pains
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> While oil gets all the headlines, we can&rsquo;t overlook the disruption to the market for liquefied natural gas.
&ldquo;The closure of the Persian Gulf cuts off about 20% of global LNG exports,&rdquo; says Paradigm macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards. &ldquo;Producers in the Gulf including Iraq, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait have run out of storage capacity and are now slashing production. Saudi Arabia has closed the Safaniya, Zuluf and Abu Safa oil fields because of Iranian drone attacks.
&ldquo;Kuwait&rsquo;s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, which processes 730,000 barrels of oil per day, has been struck by Iranian missiles several days in a row. Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s giant Ras Tanura refinery complex, which handles 550,000 barrels per day, has also come under attack.
&ldquo;The damage to Qatar&rsquo;s Ras Laffan LNG export facilities from Iranian missiles and drones is so extensive that 20% of its capacity may be offline for years. Ras Laffan produces 20% of the world&rsquo;s LNG. The war is not over and the damage may get worse before the war ends.
&ldquo;This is not a marginal impact. The global price of LNG has already risen over 60% since the war began and may double from that base level in the days ahead. The world may soon reach a point where no LNG is available at any price because it has all been purchased by desperate users.&rdquo;
Yes, as we said earlier this month, American producers of LNG stand to benefit big-time.
Jim recommended call options on one of them yesterday for readers of his premium advisory Insider Intel.
<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" />Free Speech Victory (Such As It Is)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Chalk up a modest victory in the battle against internet censorship and the feds&rsquo; attempts to strong-arm the tech giants.
&ldquo;The Justice Department has settled a lawsuit over allegations that the Biden administration pressured social media companies to remove or suppress speech,&rdquo; reports The Hill.
We should back up a bit: In the summer of 2024 the Supreme Court decided a case called Murthy v. Missouri. Several of the plaintiffs were physicians who dissented from the conventional wisdom about COVID &mdash; and who got hushed up by the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
They sued the feds &mdash; presenting a compelling case that those companies acted under government pressure. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/supreme-cowards">But in a depressing 6-3 ruling we chronicled at the time</a>, the high court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked &ldquo;standing.&rdquo; That is, there was no smoking-gun email that said, Take down this exact individual&rsquo;s post or else.
However, the ruling didn&rsquo;t dismiss the case altogether; it only denied the plaintiffs from getting a preliminary injunction against the feds while the lawsuit itself was being decided. The case was then sent back to lower courts.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This week, the Justice Department reached a settlement with the plaintiffs&rsquo; lawyers that brings the case to a close.
&ldquo;It was a victory, even if we did not get everything we wanted in the settlement,&rdquo; says one of the plaintiffs &mdash; Aaron Kheriaty, a former psychiatry professor at the University of California Irvine.
As he writes on his Substack page&hellip;
<blockquote>&hellip; the settlement prohibits the U.S. Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from threatening social media companies into removing or suppressing constitutionally protected speech on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and YouTube. It also bars these government authorities from directing or vetoing the companies&rsquo; social media content moderation choices.</blockquote>
The disturbing documents uncovered during Murthy v. Missouri revealed the existence of a pervasive &ldquo;censorship industrial complex&rdquo; &mdash; a central theme in our annual censorship issues of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-censorship-industrial-complex">2023</a> and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/todays-5-bullets-is-packed-with-misinformation">2024</a>.
Of course, there&rsquo;s a new administration in charge now. But as we chronicled in our 2025 censorship issue, the threat to free expression remains. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/deport-tucker-carlson">It&rsquo;s just taking a different form</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" />Japan&rsquo;s TP Scare (and a &rsquo;70s Flashback)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is causing all manner of supply-chain disruptions in Japan &mdash; but a toilet paper shortage is not one of them.
About three-quarters of the country&rsquo;s oil supply transits the strait. The cutoff of supply is definitely going to bite &mdash; but by and large the trouble does not extend beyond petroleum-dependent products.
No matter: There are scattered reports about runs on toilet paper, prompting the country&rsquo;s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to post the following on social media&hellip;
<blockquote>Regarding the distribution of toilet paper in light of the situation in Iran and other matters, toilet paper is almost entirely produced domestically. The raw materials are domestically collected recycled paper and pulp, with almost no dependence on the Middle East, so there will be no direct impact. There is also sufficient capacity to increase production, so we ask that you use sound judgment based on accurate information before buying any.</blockquote>
Then again, the SoraNews24 site informs us that fear of TP shortages is more or less ingrained into the collective Japanese psyche &mdash; thanks in part to what happened during the oil shock of 1973, when Japan was among the countries embargoed by Arab oil producers.
As a goodwill gesture to customers strapped by rising prices, a supermarket in Osaka put toilet paper on sale &mdash; marked down 31% from the regular price. TP flew off the shelves as a result. The article goes on&hellip;
<blockquote>The spectacle of so many people buying toilet paper at once caught the attention of the media. However, by the time a Mainichi Shimbun reporter came down to check it out, they only saw the regularly priced paper on the shelves. As such, they reported it as if people were hoarding toilet paper merely as a result of the oil crisis rather than just pouncing on a really good price. </blockquote>
And thus began a wave of panic buying &mdash; not just of toilet paper but also salt, detergent, feminine hygiene products...
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &hellip; and the story doesn&rsquo;t end there. The panic spread to the United States &mdash; decades before the COVID TP fright of 2020.
It originated with a congressmember from a timber-intensive part of Wisconsin, Harold Froehlich. Based on some government contracting documents he encountered, he warned that &ldquo;the U.S. may face a serious shortage of toilet paper within a few months.&rdquo;
That by itself wasn&rsquo;t enough to inspire panic buying. The problem was when Froehlich&rsquo;s remark became fodder for Johnny Carson&rsquo;s monologue one night on The Tonight Show. (You have to be of a certain age to get a couple of the references&hellip;)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K9-Lz0SbrA"><img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1dgTIJJx4SIHXNkGeoFjoo/1b40606f1827af08d806491b8fe32ab5/FMF-Issue-032626-3.jpg" alt="Click here to learn more" width="540px" /></a>
The hoarding was severe enough that at least one manufacturer &mdash; Scott &mdash; had to ration its wholesale shipments to retailers. Supply was no problem &mdash; only demand.
In time, Carson felt compelled to apologize on-air. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be remembered as the man who created a false toilet paper scare.&rdquo;
At least nothing of the sort is happening here again. Well, not yet&hellip;

FMF-Issue-032626-Featured

Elon Musk’s Very Busy Week

<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" />It&rsquo;s Not Just Oil That&rsquo;s Messed Up
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;What comes out of the Persian Gulf is more than oil,&rdquo; Jim Rickards wrote this week to his Strategic Intelligence readers.
We hit on this fact on Day 10 of the war. Now at Day 26 it merits our attention once more.
&ldquo;About 20% of the world&rsquo;s liquid natural gas (LNG) comes from the region,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;It is also a major source of synthetic nitrates used as fertilizer &mdash; an input that is indispensable to farmers in developing economies like India and Brazil. Without nitrogen fertilizers for the coming planting season, hundreds of millions of people may face severe food shortages.&rdquo;
And while famine might not hit the United States, Americans will still feel the impact.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4pQwin4lbuvT9PaeGT8rlA/aff576b14e22c8eaa443feb659ac511e/FMF-Issue-032526-1.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" /> &ldquo;Oil itself is about more than gasoline,&rdquo; Jim adds.
&ldquo;In refined form, it produces jet fuel (kerosene), diesel fuel (for trucks, trains and heavy equipment) and a wide range of distillates used in plastics, lubricants and industrial processes. Natural gas is used in some vehicles, but primarily for home heating and electricity generation.
&ldquo;When you look at gas prices &mdash; up roughly 33% in the past month for regular grade &mdash; the inflationary impact of higher oil prices is obvious. But the effect extends far beyond the pump. Everything you buy is transported by truck, train, plane or ship, all of which depend on oil distillates or electricity generated largely from natural gas.
&ldquo;In short, higher energy prices mean higher prices for nearly everything.&rdquo;
Diesel prices are now over $5 a gallon &mdash; up 44% since January.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Markets still expect the war to be resolved quickly, with a return to normal traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Neither expectation is realistic,&rdquo; Jim goes on.
The &ldquo;productive conversations&rdquo; the president mentioned on Monday that moved markets?
According to Iran&rsquo;s semi-official news agency Fars, Tehran formally rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal from Washington this morning&hellip; and said any talks at this time would be &ldquo;illogical.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6GWyZSSaGEiB69AmuSuVxu/30cfac252ad348bcf1f26ff49ffdf095/FMF-Issue-032526-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains shuttered, the worse the trouble becomes.
&ldquo;Shortages would emerge not only in crude oil but also in refined products,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;And restarting production is not as simple as flipping a switch. It can take weeks to restore output, and prolonged shutdowns risk permanent damage to well pressure and flow rates.
&ldquo;The situation in LNG may be worse. Damage to Qatar&rsquo;s Ras Laffan export facilities from Iranian strikes could leave a significant portion of capacity offline for years. Ras Laffan alone accounts for about 20% of global LNG supply.
&ldquo;Investors may be bracing for higher prices. What they are not fully accounting for are outright shortages, industrial shutdowns, long-term infrastructure damage and breakdowns in the systems that support global energy markets.&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" />Markets Today: Oil Retreats, Bonds Stressed
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Stocks are rallying, oil is falling&hellip; and the mainstream has settled on a narrative that U.S.-Iran negotiations are nigh, despite what you read in Bullet No. 1.
Really, the action isn&rsquo;t that dramatic. The S&amp;P 500 is up a half percent, approaching 6,600. The gains in the Dow and Nasdaq are a bit stronger.
Meanwhile a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is down 2% to $90.48 &mdash; even as certain Middle East grades are trading for $170 and higher. True, there&rsquo;s a &ldquo;war premium&rdquo; on those grades&hellip; but an $80 premium continues to be beyond the pale for many observers on social media.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3jNfgmFiVm853RvdZHGid3/2685fd6c45565f72aa8c19a0d7135028/FMF-Issue-032526-3.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
An additional constraint on global oil supply: According to new calculations by the Reuters newswire, at least 40% of Russia&rsquo;s crude export capacity is offline &ldquo;following Ukrainian drone attacks, a disputed attack on a major pipeline and the seizure of tankers.&rdquo;
Precious metals are back on the rally tracks &mdash; gold up nearly $80 to $4,552 and silver up $1.37 to $72.48. Crypto remains range-bound, Bitcoin still over $71,000 and Ethereum just under $2,200.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Meanwhile, there&rsquo;s trouble brewing in the bond market.
The U.S. Treasury auctioned a batch of 2-year notes yesterday. It went &ldquo;miserably,&rdquo; to use the words of a strategist at Capitol Securities Management.
&ldquo;Reports of Pentagon plans to deploy roughly 3,000 soldiers from the Army&rsquo;s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East were blamed Tuesday for a weak $69 billion sale of 2-year Treasury notes,&rdquo; says MarketWatch.
&ldquo;Typically, 2-year auctions go largely unnoticed beyond the dealers and buyers involved in the roughly $30 trillion Treasury market. It&rsquo;s often a place where safe-haven seekers and corporations can park cash for a while and earn a bit of yield. The auction starts and buyers line up.&rdquo;
Not yesterday. Weak demand translates to rising rates&hellip; and the 2-year yield soared 0.096 percentage points to 3.926% &mdash; the highest in nearly eight months.
The stress spilled over into the benchmark 10-year note, where yields jumped back over 4.4%.
For the moment, that stress is receding, the 10-year back under 4.32%. All eyes now are on an auction of 5-year notes this afternoon&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" />SpaceX Makes Waves, a Competitor Makes Moves
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Just as happened during SpaceCom in Orlando in January&hellip; major SpaceX news is breaking during this week&rsquo;s Satellite 2026 gathering in Washington, D.C.
Back then it was SpaceX&rsquo;s merger with another Elon Musk company, xAI. Now Bloomberg and Reuters report that SpaceX is looking to file its IPO prospectus as early as this week.
&ldquo;I'm watching it break in real-time, surrounded by the people building the industry it's about to put a price tag on,&rdquo; says our Ray Blanco from the convention floor.
&ldquo;The market is about to officially value space-based connectivity at over a trillion dollars. And I've spent the last two days on the ground with the companies riding that same wave.&rdquo;
Ray met up with the guy building the biggest rival to SpaceX&rsquo;s Starlink satellite venture &mdash; Scott Wisniewski, president and chief strategy officer at AST SpaceMobile (ASTS).
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/26plZREVJzslHKjGXfm3qb/6258b8fd5efe533f403015375cec78c3/ALN-ALert-032526_1_.jpg" alt="pub" width="540px" /> And Ray (on the right) has the photo to prove it&hellip;
&ldquo;While every headline was about SpaceX, I was standing on the exhibit floor with the man running commercialization for the company I believe will dominate direct-to-device connectivity from space,&rdquo; Ray writes on the Paradigm mobile app.
As Ray said in yesterday&rsquo;s edition, ASTS has the advantage of existing partnerships with all the major wireless providers. What&rsquo;s more, it has the technology enabling you to make satellite calls using the phone you already have in your pocket.
The company&rsquo;s next big step is the BlueBird 7 satellite launch just five days from now aboard Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. By year-end, as many as 60 similar satellites will be in orbit.
&ldquo;The SpaceX IPO tells the world space connectivity is a trillion-dollar market. I agree. ASTS is how I'm playing it.&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" />OpenAI: The Real Story About Sora
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The big story in AI today is not what the media are making it out to be.
OpenAI, the privately held company behind ChatGPT, has shut down its AI video-making platform called Sora.
Sora burst on the scene less than two years ago &mdash; wowing users with its ability to make realistic-looking videos that were once the province of Hollywood studios with sophisticated CGI capabilities.
From the get-go, copyright was an issue: Users were pilfering existing videos and using Sora to edit, remix and otherwise modify them. The furor was such that in December, OpenAI struck a $1 billion content partnership with Disney &mdash; under which ChatGPT users got access to Disney and Marvel characters to create their own AI-generated images and videos.
So much for all that: Less than four months later, Sora is toast and OpenAI will wind down the DIS partnership.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But the real story is where OpenAI says it&rsquo;s directing its resources instead.
The money and brainpower that the company was dumping into Sora? It&rsquo;s being diverted to the two things that Paradigm&rsquo;s experts have said mark the new frontier in AI &mdash; robotics and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/when-ai-does-your-grunt-work">AI agents</a>.
Or as OpenAI said in a statement to the BBC, it&rsquo;s focusing on endeavors &ldquo;that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.&rdquo;
With this shift, OpenAI is acknowledging there are limits on available capital, on computing power and on energy. Scarce resources have to be devoted to efforts that will enhance productivity &mdash; rather than time-sucks like a video of SpongeBob running away from the cops.
By the way, you can still use ChatGPT to make still images. That doesn&rsquo;t soak up nearly as much computing power or energy.
➢ Meanwhile, Disney probably isn&rsquo;t out any money. The $1 billion DIS was going to &ldquo;invest&rdquo; in OpenAI? As Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta told us at the time of the announcement in December, OpenAI was paying DIS not in cash but with warrants to buy OpenAI stock. &ldquo;Those are likely well in the money and Disney would only put the $1 billion investment in IF they were so &mdash; in fact &mdash; while Disney WOULD be investing $1 billion into OpenAI, they likely would be making much more money than that.&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: Medicines and 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" /> &ldquo;Drugs through the Strait of Hormuz?&rdquo; writes a perplexed reader after Saturday&rsquo;s edition about still another supply-chain snag resulting from the war.
&ldquo;Sorry, but no matter how cross-eyed I look at a world map, I can't find a reasonable shipping track from India to the United States through the Strait of Hormuz. Did you maybe mean the Bab al-Mandab Strait between Yemen and Djibouti? At least that makes some sense. Geography can be tricky when you're being shot at.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Ummm&hellip; We thought it was self-evident that the issue isn&rsquo;t with the finished products from India, but rather with some of the ingredients that go into those drugs. (Medical-grade plastics also transit the Strait of Hormuz.)
Among the potential shortages that are looming &mdash; antibiotics, diabetes drugs like metformin, blood pressure meds and even cancer therapies.
As the saying goes, actions have consequences&hellip;