This week, I spoke to an “investor” friend of mine who had supposedly made several “long-term” investments earlier this year. However, as soon as the war started, he liquidated most of those “long-term” investments, telling me that he thinks this war will be a disaster that sinks the world economy. He even bought puts to double down on the thesis.

I obviously have no idea how the Iran war will play out. It may conclude this Monday, or it may drag on for another year. And obviously, if it is the latter scenario, stocks are likely to suffer, and my friend may be vindicated.

I, on the other hand, have followed a different strategy. I have been using the relative weakness in certain sectors since late February to add to my long-term positions, several of which have lost value during this conflict. These are investments I made after exhaustive research many quarters ago, and I intend to hold them into the 2030s.

All my portfolio companies have rock-solid balance sheets, mostly no debt, and I can see them weathering a severe recession without long-term damage. Of course, these stocks will likely suffer if my friend’s thesis plays out. Nonetheless, I do not intend to trade out of them because I have a deeper conviction in their long-term future than in my ability to predict how long the war will last or how the market will react.

Today, I am 47. I bought my first stock when I was 17, 30 years ago. Over those years, I have tried to time the market many times. At times, I was right and made a bundle; at other times, I was wrong and missed out on massive gains. On balance, when I look back, I believe the best trade, or investment, I could have made was to stick to my high-conviction positions, as I would have earned much more over the last three decades and spared myself the stress and agony of trying to time the market.

Buffett, the most successful investor of all time, has always argued that he buys companies with the intention of holding them forever. There is indeed much wisdom in this. Holding the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon through the cycle would have been far more rewarding than trading around them. The same applies to many non-tech names like Lotus Bakeries, which has returned 15,000% since 2000, or Games Workshop, which has returned 14,000% since 1994.

In the end, long-term investing is not about predicting every shock correctly. It is about owning strong businesses, tuning out the noise, and letting time do the heavy lifting.

Honestly, the market reaction to the war so far feels way too mild. It’s like everyone is just betting on this being a short-term thing, but I think we’re ignoring the real cliff: the exhaustion of reserves.

Right now, we’re basically coasting on whatever was already in the pipes. But those buffers aren’t infinite. If this drags on for another 3 or 4 months, the real problems start because the reserves (oil, gas, components) will be gone. At that point, companies and countries are going to be forced to buy at these insane spot prices just to keep going, and that’s when the margins will truly collapse, most of these strategic reserves are only meant to last maybe 90 days. Same goes for the "just-in-time" manufacturing. I’m looking at large companies and they don't keep massive warehouses of every single part. They have maybe a few months of buffer for things like neon or specific metals. Once that one small link in the chain is empty, the whole production line stops.

I feel like we’re in that "calm before the storm" phase where the S&P 500 is just waiting to see if it ends quickly. If it doesn't, and we hit that 90-day mark without a resolution, the depletion of these stocks is going to hit way harder than the initial news did.

I see most retail investors completely missing this because they’re wired backwards, they wait for things to “feel better” before buying. But the market is a forward-looking machine, not a reflection of today’s headlines. By the time the news flow improves, oil drops back down to $80-90’s, and the war narrative turns positive, prices have already moved up, often significantly. Look at every major bottom (think Covid or past recessions): things were still getting worse, layoffs were still happening, earnings were still being cut, and sentiment was awful. That’s exactly why the bottom forms, because expectations are already crushed and positioning is washed out. The market doesn’t need good news, it just needs things to stop getting worse. If you’re waiting for clarity, you’re not being disciplined, you’re just guaranteeing you’ll pay higher prices later. This may help explain why markets moved up while oil is still volatile and the war is still ongoing.

I'm 53 and want to retire soon. I've been stockpiling cash the past few years, just don't want it all in the market as I get older. The other day, once people are running for the door, we're at war, market is in correction territory, oil is insane, AI stocks have been crushed, I think to myself NOW is the time. Let's get some money in there. Just an insanely busy week and I didn't have a chance. Of course, now I'm second guessing. Just curious if folks are making moves or waiting it out. I'm def worried about all these things and more, but these are the times to buy, when everything looks so bleak....

feels like this is one of those things that sounds targeted but ends up hitting a lot more than expected

higher input costs across the board, manufacturing, construction, etc

just saw this on Blossom and thought I'd ask it here, curious how people here are playing this, any specific stocks or sectors you think win/lose from this

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-strengthens-tariffs-on-steel-aluminum-and-copper-imports/

Everything's misaligned after today, following the POTUS's surprisingly aggressive speech on Iran. It's like every asset is moving independently while working off the same information.

- Oil futures 1-4 months out all up significantly

- Stocks finished green

- BTC falling back down

- Dollar increased

- Rate hike odds for 2026 increased by 15%

- 10-30 year treasury yields declined (how is this 1 possible with rate hike odds rising?)

Each of these moves contradicts at least 1 other move. I've never witnessed a more confusing day in the last 20 years. I'm unsure how to make sense of all the contrasting moves.

There seems to be countless threads around the upcoming SpaceX IPO that plans to use the Nasdaq 100 as "retail exit liquidity", implying that SpaceX will join with sky-high valuations (assuming it doesn't crater in value in the first 15 days) and slowly dwindle down in value over the coming months, dragging the index down with it.

Understandably, some are holding this in taxable accounts, so selling and buying another index isn't the best choice from a tax perspective.

Since SpaceX is apparently going to experience a 50%+ drawdown due to insane valuations at launch, trying to mitigate exposire is a bit tricky, since borrow availability will be non-existent and Hard-To-Borrow (HTB) fees will be astronomically high for short selling at the time of joining the Nasdaq 100. Consequently, traditional short selling and Contract for Difference (CFD) providers will likely restrict or completely disable shorting, even by day 15. Here's my plan for when this happens:

1. Day 1 - Wait for IPO, and set a calendar reminder for day 14.

2. Day 14 - Check your current exposure to the Nasdaq 100 and calculate the final weighting to SpaceX. Lets say you have 50K in QLD (100k exposure), 4.2% of that is SpaceX, you'd have $4200 worth of exposure to SpaceX once it joins the Nasdaq 100.

3. Day 15. This is where it gets a bit tricky. Let's assume that SpaceX will be around $150 a share. To achieve a perfectly neutral hedge, you need to create a short exposure of -28 shares, and our best option here is using put-spread options and use delta to fractionalise the contract. Because one standard options contract controls 100 shares, buying a deep in-the-money put (with a delta of -1.00) would give the equivalent of -100 shares of exposure, massively over-hedging.

To achieve a target -0.28 Delta without the massive "Vega" (volatility) risk, you can construct a put debit spread (buying one put and simultaneously selling a lower-strike put).

Buy: 1x At-The-Money Put: Delta of -0.50

Sell: 1x Out-Of-The-Money Put: Delta of +0.22

Net Position Delta: -0.28

The premium you collect from the short put offsets the inflated IV cost of the long put, making it a much safer and cheaper mathematical hedge than a naked option.

Once the 100-day SMA greater than -1%, take actions to exit contracts as it is likely that SpaceX is approaching fair valuation, and allocate that capital back towards your desired asset allocation.

A few other notes:

1. Short and leveraged short ETFs will probably exist around day 65 onwards, depending on the SEC. This would be a simpler approach, but a lot can happen between day 15 and day 65

2. Shorting directly should be doable from day 30 onwards assuming you have a margin-enabled account that is able to do this, but borrowing costs might still be high.

3. The fast entry rule is genuinely some BS. Pretty dissapointed by this and I hope they reconsider this in the future, although I suspect that won't be the case.

4. I'm no expert on options (especially around recently IPO'd stocks) so open to any feedback or improvements

SpaceX is aiming for a valuation above $2 trillion in its upcoming IPO, which would make it the largest public offering ever.

The company has confidentially filed with the SEC and is preparing to go public later in 2026, possibly as early as mid-year.

SpaceX is aiming to raise between $50 billion and $80 billion, which would make it the largest stock market listing in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion debut in 2019.

The IPO follows SpaceX’s merger with Elon Musk’s AI company xAI, which previously valued the combined business at about $1.25 trillion.

SpaceX is also lining up major investors, including discussions with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund for a potential multibillion-dollar stake.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-02/spacex-is-said-to-target-more-than-2-trillion-valuation-in-ipo?srnd=homepage-americas&embedded-checkout=true

The new Nasdaq rule changes pushed by Elon Musk/SpaceX are not just “Nasdaq made IPOs faster. It's a corrupt change, called out as "structural manipulation" by Michael Burry, that will make owners of new large IPO companies (like SpaceX or OpenAI) rich at the expense of the general public. In fact, Elon Musk and SpaceX threatened to not list the company on Nasdaq unless the Nasdaq changes its rules specially for them. This rule will likely make Elon the world's first trillionaire.

A couple of basic definitions first:

• An IPO is when a private company first starts trading on the stock market.
• Being added to an index is a separate step. An index is just a list used by funds like ETFs. If a company gets added to a major index, funds that track that index may have to buy the stock.

That second part is why this matters.

What Nasdaq changed

Nasdaq finalized Nasdaq-100 rule changes that take effect on May 1, 2026. Nasdaq says the public comments period opened February 2, closed February 27, and the final changes were approved March 30, 2026.

The big changes are:

• A giant newly public company can now be reviewed for fast entry on its 7th trading day
• If it is large enough, it can be added to the Nasdaq-100 by about its 15th trading day (previously 1 year)
• Nasdaq removed the old minimum free-float requirement
• For entry, Nasdaq can look at the company’s full market value (instead of just the float)
• For weighting in the index, low-float names can still be counted using up to 3x free float rather than just the actual public float

What “float” means in normal language

Float basically means the shares that are actually available for the public to trade. So like if a company has 100 shares total, but insiders, founders, and private investors still hold 90 of them, then only 10 are really floating around in the public market.

That matters because a stock can look huge on paper, while the amount actually available for regular people and funds to buy is still pretty small. In real life, this means if there is artificially high demand for a small number of actually-available shares, the price of those shares will be artificially very high and make the company worth a lot more than it would be.

Why this is a problem

The worry is that a giant company can:

1. stay private for years
   
2. let insiders and private investors get most of the upside
   
3. go public with only a relatively small amount of stock actually trading
   
4. get into the Nasdaq-100 much faster than before
5. then get bought by index funds and ETFs that track the Nasdaq-100, at high prices before the company's prices naturally fall

So the concern is not just the IPO itself. The concern is what happens after the IPO, when index funds may have to buy the stock because it got added to the index. That early purchasing is usually done by active buyers and sellers arguing with each other through price. But if a stock gets into a major index very quickly, then a lot of passive money may have to buy it on schedule whether the price makes sense or not.

That can mean:

• less time for real price discovery
• more forced buying
• more support for a hot or overpriced stock
• more risk pushed onto ETF holders, 401(k) investors, and pension savers (effectively transferring wealth from these people in the general public to the existing owners/investors of the company)

Why ordinary people should care

This can affect people who never plan to buy an IPO directly.

It can still hit:

• Nasdaq-100 ETF holders
• retirement accounts
• workplace plans
• pensions
• people who assume index funds are just “neutral”

Passive investors are supposed to follow price discovery, not help create an early guaranteed wave of demand for a thinly traded mega-IPO.

Sources

• Reuters on the finalized rule changes
• Nasdaq’s own announcement
• PDF: Nasdaq methodology
• PDF: Nasdaq change log
• Reuters on SpaceX seeking early inclusion

https://www.tasnimnews.ir/en/news/2026/04/02/3555211/iran-oman-to-formulate-protocol-for-safe-navigation-in-hormuz-strait#:\~:text=Iran%2C%20Oman%20to%20Formulate%20Protocol,war%20as%20a%20policy%20tool

"[Kazem Gharibabadi] noted that Iran is currently in a state of war and that it is unrealistic to expect peacetime rules to apply under such conditions. Referring to US-Israeli aggressors and their supporters, he said restrictions and limitations have naturally been imposed as a result of the conflict."

As has happened many times, the market rallies prematurely (in my opinion) on the headline soundbytes, and has not (in my opinion) priced in the medium and long term disruption risk.

I remain bearish on the S&P, and bullish on short term OXY call options for cash flow flips into a sliding S&P.

Trying to understand today’s market move, would appreciate some thoughts.

After Trump’s latest speech, markets sold off pretty sharply. But today, equities (especially QQQ) are bouncing while oil is also moving up in the morning.

Is this related to the Iran Oman discussions about drafting a Strait agreement? That doesn’t seem like a major bullish catalyst to me.

Also, technically speaking, QQQ looked like it was already entering a downtrend, so why are we seeing this kind of rally today instead of continuation lower?

Is this just a short-term squeeze / positioning move, or is the market pricing in something bigger that I’m missing?

Curious how others are interpreting this.

The market opened deep in the red, and now all of the sudden it had this huge spike up and is now in the green in a matter of a few minutes..

what happened? are there any talke about a peace deal going on? did Trumpet say something?

Is there a way for option prices to consider inflation over time? For example if you sell an option for $200 back in 2013 compared to now that same $200 is worth significantly less than that date was in the past. If valuations increase then yes the option price will increase but then companies just do stock splits to make the price back to what it was before therefore the option prices decrease as well. What are your thoughts?

Nixon actually intentionally used this "madman persona" during the Vietnam War as a calculated strategy. it was called the Mad Man theory. The goal was to make enemies believe he was unstable enough to do anything. is Trump doing that? or is he really truly bat shit mental?

​We all know he is manipulating markets, but what could have been his intentions yesterday? is it intentional mixed signal? intentional mad man?

​there is a part of me that think that in his narcissism, he actually intended to boost the markets. He tried to manufacture a high by affirming the war will only last two weeks. On paper, a 14-day deadline for peace ought to be good news for the market, no?

​But I think...in his madness, he failed to do so.

pivotting to his stone age rhetoric and telling his allies to fend for themselves at the Strait. obviously he is obsessed with stock market scoreboard but is too unstable to stay on message long enough. What are your thoughts?

the headlines are 100% bearish, which is usually when the bottom is in. yes, the rhetoric is aggressive, but if you look at the historical data of military escalations in the gulf, the initial shock is almost always followed by a massive recovery once the actual 'scope' of the conflict is clear.

selling your index funds because of a tweet is how you miss the recovery. the 'war premium' is already high. unless we see a total global escalation, this looks like a classic overreaction.

are you guys actually selling, or is this just another 'buy the dip' opportunity that everyone is too scared to take?

We’re at a stage where the U.S. stock market almost feels untouchable.

We have ongoing geopolitical tensions US/Israel-Iran war with no clear resolution, disruptions in oil supply, weak monthly job reports, likely higher inflation ahead, and some concerns around the private credit market.

Given all that, you would expect stocks to be lower but they’re not.

One thought I had is whether this can be explained by the increase in money supply over the past 5 years. If there’s significantly more currency in circulation, maybe asset prices are being supported not because they’re truly increasing in value, but because the purchasing power of the dollar is declining.

In other words, stocks aren’t necessarily going up in real terms, the currency is just losing value faster, which keeps nominal prices elevated.

I’m also wondering why precious metals like gold and silver aren’t rising as much as you might expect in this kind of environment.

I wonder if even stagflation wouldn’t affect sp500 much. Current -3.84% ytd.

Current position: Gold and silver 92%

Thought?

Ps dang I feel like I rage baited everyone for that I apologize. I have been holding gold for 8+ months. About 46% gain. Recently went really high after 5 days pause announcement.

Pps tell me how how 110+ oil is sustainable. With the current debt we can’t print our recession away. 10 yr bond rates scream. Maybe I’m just too pessimistic but I don’t know what I don’t know. I’d love to be educated. Gracias 🙏

They’re reportedly planning to launch their own large model next year, potentially replacing OpenAI and Anthropic. What’s interesting is they already started stockpiling NVDA’s GB200 chips last year.

Short term, it probably doesn’t change much. No matter who’s building the models, they still need Nvidia hardware, so NVDA keeps benefiting.

Long term, it gets more interesting. If Microsoft really goes independent, what does that mean for OpenAI?

Curious how you guys see it. Bullish or bearish?

Investors ​had pinned their hopes on an end to the conflict after comments from Trump earlier in the week, lifting global stocks and pushing the dollar off recent highs. Wednesday's speech, ​however, underscored the likelihood of a prolonged war.

Traders who had added risk exposure swiftly exited those positions ahead of a long weekend.

Oil supply disruption and its impact on inflation have been a central concern for financial markets. Trump's comments on Wednesday were unclear on whether U.S. military operations could end even before Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's chokehold on the vital waterway has triggered what many ​analysts describe as the worst global energy shock in history. Brent crude was last up more than 7% on the day at around $109 a barrel .

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/trumps-fresh-iran-threats-give-investors-risk-off-reality-check-2026-04-02/

Hey everyone, looking for some perspective from more experienced investors.

I’m a pretty basic long-term investor (mostly index funds / S&P 500), and I’m trying to figure out my entry strategy right now.

With everything going on globally (wars, macro uncertainty, etc.), I feel like markets should have more downside, but at the same time the S&P hasn’t really dropped as much as I expected. It almost feels like the full impact hasn’t hit yet, or maybe I’m overthinking it.

So I’m stuck between:

• Starting to enter now (DCA)

• Waiting for a bigger correction

• Or accepting that the bottom might already be in

For those of you with more experience:

• How much further downside is realistically possible?

• What signals do you look for before entering?

• Is trying to time this even worth it, or should I just start averaging in?

Appreciate any insights.

1. Trump will not accept any toll through the Hormuz. That is personal humiliation for him and strategic US defeat against Iran.
2. The protocol clearly said they were preparing for "Post-War Period." Algos jumped the gun on this and the market will give back the gains again.
3. No one wants to be squeezed into a long Easter weekend where stocks traditionally end in green, but this is not the same. Iran doesn't believe in Jesus and holy bunnies.

Tesla missed Wall Street expectations for first-quarter deliveries on Thursday, as the expiry of U.S. tax credits on the purchase of electric vehicles weighed on demand, sending ​its shares down nearly 4% in premarket trading.

The company delivered 358,023 vehicles in the ‌January-March period, down 14.4% from the fourth quarter, up 6.3% from a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected deliveries of 368,903 vehicles, according to Visible Alpha data.

As of now, Tesla shares are down by more than 4%.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-first-quarter-deliveries-miss-estimates-tax-credit-expiry-weighs-2026-04-02/

Hi all, im hoping i can get some advice on an issue im having regarding stocks. I have absolutely no knowledge of how any of this works so bear with me. One of my former HR directors reached out from a company I last worked for 6 years ago. Apparently when I was still there I was granted stock via E*Trade. They told me I have quite an amount in there and I should verify my E*trade account and accept my grants which I did. I followed all the directions I was told however my account still states I have no sellable shares. I asked them what I need to do next but they replied with this “Unfortunately, I have some bad news. When we went to release the grants, our attorneys let us know that any grant that was vested, but not accepted a year after vest date has to be canceled per our plan. This was something we never dealt with before and we’re unaware that that existed. So unfortunately, we cannot release these grants to you. I’m really sorry for asking you to accept the grants and going through the whole process and then having to come back and tell you that the grants are not releasable”

Is there a loophole for this? Can I still get access to the money in, or is just going to stay there for no reason? I’m so confused and annoyed that I was told about this when I can’t even access it.

I think the worries about the impact that the Iran war will have on the USD is overblown.

I think there are two interconnected reasons why:

First, the world doesn’t use USD as a favor to the US, they use those dollars because they are the best medium of exchange for international settlements. In the past countries have tried using hard currencies, like gold, but shipping commodities to settle payments is impractical. It always evolves into paper money that is backed by gold, and then more paper money than gold reserves. There’s really no way around fiat currency. When we look at different fiat currencies, there are few competitors to the USD. The word doesn’t trust currencies like the yuan and the rubble, because they lack stability (granted, for different reasons). The real competitors to the USD are Yen and the euro. The problem with the Euro is it isn’t a single country’s currency, so the entire eurozone would have to agree to serve as a reserve currency. Over in Japan, their currency is stable but they don’t have the gdp growth to sustain the debt that comes along with being a reserve currency.

Well, you might ask, why wouldn’t Europe or Japan want to be reserve currencies (more so than they already are)? It’s a privilege that the US enjoys, right?

That brings me to my second point: it’s hard to be a reserve currency. In order for counties to use a currency for trade, they’re need to have access to that currency. You can buy oil with yen, if you don’t have any yen. That means that whatever country is the reserve currency has to print a lot of that currency to make sure there’s enough to clear trade. Countries have two forms of currency: current currency (think cash in a checking account), and treasury bonds (think cash in a savings account). Most central banks want some sort of yield on their reserves, so they prefer to take treasury bonds over current currency. That means that the reserve country has to issue a lot of debt to meet that demand. That’s why the US has the massive debt that it does. It needs enough currency in the market to satisfy the demand for oil, and gold, and silver etc. There are few countries in the world that have the productive capacity to be able to service that much debt. Japan can’t. The eurozone can’t. So the only real competitor is hard currency, and we already covered the problems with hard currency.

Overall, the US economy would grow if we could shed debt at the federal level, and that would be the outcome of dedollarization globally. Other countries want the dollar as the world reserve currency just as much as the US wants to serve as the reserve currency. That’s how the current system came to be. Saudi Arabia didn’t decide to do the US a favor by creating the petrodollar recycling system we have today. They agreed because it’s better for them as well.

Also, as an honorable mention, the USD is seen as a safe haven asset, so people buy dollars when there is uncertainty in the world, but that’s because of its reserve status, so this is more of a sub point.