Monday, March 9, 2026…4:10 PM ET
[4:00 PM ET closing prices for stocks; 3:50ish for commodities and bonds.]
What a crazy 24 hours (really like 18). Last night, around 10:00 PM ET, I checked the commodities futures, as a lot of us do these days, also to see how Tokyo and South Korea were doing on the equity front, it being Monday over there.
And I was startled…West Texas Intermediate was at $119+ a barrel, up from Friday’s $90.75 close, with gas futures up to about $3.25. Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s Kospi indexes were also cratering.
Well, the Nikkei finished its session down 5.2%, and the Kospi 6%, which wasn’t as bad as it had been.
And while our equity futures were down big time at around 4:00 a.m. when I first checked, they were essentially the lows of the day, as the markets calmed down, WTI fell all the way to below $90, and the yield on our 10-year Treasury, which overnight had hit 4.21% on a further inflation scare with the oil price near $120, settled this afternoon at 4.10%.
The Group of Seven nations is deciding tomorrow morning whether to have a coordinated release of oil from their reserves, to get the price back down, and President Trump is holding a press conference later today, telling the New York Post he “has a plan” for dealing with high energy prices.
HOWEVER…around 3:15 p.m., the markets rallied bigly, and oil tanked further on the report from CBS News that in a phone interview, President Trump said the war “is very complete, pretty much.”
Separately, there was a story that Iran’s foreign minister had said tanker traffic could proceed through the Strait of Hormuz “carefully.” Which is better than saying, “We’re going to blow you out of the water if you traverse through the critical waterway. There hasn’t been an attack on a commercial vessel in the Persian Gulf in 48 hours, according to reports. [China has been putting considerable pressure on Iran, whose oil it desperately needs, after being cut off from Venezuelan crude.]
As you know I’m focused on the price of diesel, which has gone from $3.75 to $4.65 since the war started. That is extremely inflationary.
Bottom line…take it all one day at a time. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was replaced by his 56-year-old son, Mojtaba, who is thought to be “considerably more violent and ideological than his father,” according to Graeme Wood of The Atlantic, as well as having the support of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But Mojtaba’s days could be numbered. Or maybe not…President Trump could be providing clues this afternoon. Yes, it’s freakin’ nuts trying to keep up….
Dow Jones +239…+0.5% [47740]
S&P 500 +55…+0.8% [6795]
Nasdaq +308…+1.4% [22695]
Oil (WTI) $85.90…incredibly fluid…price could be $10 different in an hour….
Gold $5130
Silver $86.10
Bitcoin $69,004 [4:00 PM ET]
U.S. 2-yr. 3.54%
U.S. 10-yr. 4.10%
Japanese 10-yr. 2.17%
Back Tues.
Brian Trumbore
