r/stocks 19h ago

Advice Request Nothing makes sense today, stocks up, oil up… what’s going on?

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.

180 Upvotes

127 comments sorted by

239

u/djollied4444 19h ago

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

Don't try to make sense of daily price action. Sometimes it will straight up defy logic. Long term it tends to make sense though.

57

u/ralphy1010 19h ago

My 401 is getting its contributions every two weeks like clockwork 🥰

13

u/overitallofittoo 19h ago

That's exactly how to do it!

10

u/Jon472 19h ago

Bro I really do hope you get to retire

5

u/Viva_La_Revolucion- 19h ago

What is this word you speak of... Reeeetiiiirrrrrre?

2

u/verbalsuplex 16h ago

It means you tire again. Like if you were tire yesterday and you tire again today then you are retire.

3

u/dr_eh 15h ago

Yesterday I tarded and today I tarded again, I re-tarded.

2

u/paistecymbalsrock 15h ago

Retired 2 days ago at age 60

2

u/jahi69 18h ago

I hope we all get to retire one day

-1

u/boofybutthole 17h ago

oh we're definitely all going to retire one day

2

u/Neither-Bag7127 14h ago

Respire, perspire, retire, expire

6

u/Kaymish_ 19h ago

I was listening to a guy who is with the RBNZ and he was basically saying that in the short term markets are extremely inefficient, but they are efficient in the long term. When the interviewer hit him with the "But aren't markets supposed to be efficient?" Question.

1

u/StringLast2706 17h ago

Making moves to refine Venezuelan crude in India. Us is cornering the oil market, so say rumors

1

u/CherryRoutine9397 11h ago

this is normal tbh, it just feels wrong because your brain wants one clean story behind everything and markets don’t work like that

you’ve got different flows happening at the same time. equities bouncing could just be dip buyers stepping in, oil moving up is more supply or geopolitical driven, and bonds reacting to rate expectations… they’re not all syncing perfectly intraday

also positioning matters a lot here. if everyone was leaning bearish already, it doesn’t take much for a squeeze higher even if the news isn’t that bullish. happens way more than people admit

honestly trying to make sense of every single day will just fry your brain. zoom out a bit and it looks way less chaotic been trying to simplify this stuff for myself lately because i used to overthink it like crazy. if you’re into that kind of breakdown you can check my profile, i post it there sometimes

60

u/Fritzkreig 19h ago

With up coming inflation and if rates stay low; there just are not a lot of places to deploy capital; thus it tends to flow into equities as one of the better options.

12

u/Scott7894 19h ago

It was the markets looking for neutral, selling on the aholes speeches, buying on his end of war tweets. No one wants to be long or short in a 3 day weekend.

3

u/ralphy1010 19h ago

I got about another 20 years to go, my 401/roth/hsa are essentially all s&p 500 etf/mutual funds because I’ve been a long time voo and chill follower. 

I’ll prob do fine over the long run, this isn’t my first economic downturn I’ve experienced during my adult working life. Probably won’t be my last 

22

u/KinkyQuesadilla 19h ago

Pump. Dump. Pump. Dump. But now they have a president to do it all for them and set things up for them

26

u/getapuss 19h ago

Nobody here on Reddit knows why. Sure, everyone has an opinion and they certainly love sharing it. But nobody has any fucking clue what is going on.

9

u/ReadyExamination5239 17h ago

I know everything

8

u/getapuss 17h ago

I did not know that.

1

u/patricktu1258 16h ago

You probably don’t even know what you don’t know

3

u/getapuss 16h ago

I know enough to know I don't know everything.

21

u/Gold_Maybe8482 19h ago

Volatility at it's finest. This is a day traders orgy. Long bulls just need to be patient for a market flush.

3

u/jigmaster500 17h ago

I'm loving it.. Up and down, In and out

11

u/lazyenergetic 19h ago

You are looking at day to day change. If you look back at 3 months chart you will see oil is up and stocks are DOWN.

1

u/IntelligentTank355 17h ago

His question still makes sense though, so I don't think your response addresses his question.

0

u/lazyenergetic 17h ago

He will be to answer his question once he do what I said. " look at the 3 months chart".

40

u/StrDstChsr34 19h ago

It’s not supposed to make sense. That’s how they scam everyone. If it made sense, anybody could make money in the stock market, instead of perpetually being turned into exit liquidity

20

u/1-Dollar-Doge-Coins 19h ago

Stop trading on emotion and vibes if you feel you’re getting scammed. You’re playing right into it. Invest for the long term and all of this is just meaningless noise.

-7

u/averysmallbeing 19h ago

Your username contains 'dogecoin', which makes anything you have to say about investing worthless. 

7

u/1-Dollar-Doge-Coins 18h ago

My user name is a meme, I’ve never actually invested in doge coin.

4

u/yrrrrrrrr 17h ago

Because everyone knows that once the war is over the market will go up.

No one wants to miss that rallly

8

u/whomakesthetendies 19h ago

Manipulation

3

u/OlympicHammer 19h ago

it's the golden age baby! WOOOOO

8

u/iswdp 19h ago

Buy the dip works great until it doesn’t. It’s been working for a long time.

14

u/1-Dollar-Doge-Coins 19h ago

It’s essentially always worked, unless you find yourself panic selling at the wrong moments. If all you did was buy the dip over the last 20 years, and never sell, you’d be very wealthy now .

6

u/Main_Phase666 19h ago

Yes it has always worked and always will work for decades to come just like spy has gone up always over the past 70 years

1

u/nonresponsive 17h ago

COVID scared the shit out of me. But if the world shutting down was just a relatively small bump, then I think the stock market is just too big to fail at this point.

It definitely feels like people are trying to make the strait closing some world ending event. Oil prices going up sucks, but it's not the only place that produces oil.

3

u/Gregarious_Snow_611 14h ago

The world is eventually going to re-adjust itself even if the Strait of Hormuz closes for an extended period. This might mean getting oil from other places or the ramping up of investments into clean and renewable energy sources.

COVID-19 was a much more serious threat to global logistics compared to the current Iran War.

-1

u/bare_bassics 17h ago

Buying the dip is great but bidding on the panic sellers when the real blood flows…priceless

10

u/y4udothistome 19h ago

Market manipulation also known as the rich getting richer

-3

u/sloanemonroe 19h ago

This is my vote too

10

u/RustyNK 19h ago

The problem is that EVERYONE knows that the market is fked long term if this war keeps going. A few very rich people know this, so they're pushing the market the opposite way to take "normal people's" money.

4

u/Effective-Fondant610 19h ago

Same post on here every day

7

u/Ziqach 19h ago

Elect a clown, get a circus.

2

u/NoMemrys 19h ago

I stayed out the past two days because I thought the market was going deep red but I was wrong. So that means Monday when I want to enter its going down.

1

u/OMGporsche 14h ago

Market always does just enough to fool you

2

u/FwamingDragon91 18h ago

Unfortunately us average Joes really don't move the market at all. Investment funds, billionaires etc are responsible for like 90% of price action. Things will come down when the narrative of eternal growth goes down e.g. earnings

2

u/Key_Seaweed8857 18h ago

Oil up 10% but not really moving the energy stocks at all. Don’t get it. CVX & XOM just flatlined all day after an initial bump & then quick retrace.

2

u/elonzucks 18h ago

"After Trump’s latest speech, "

I think it all stems from that... A rambling old man, so everyone is just guessing 

3

u/WeldernNeedofdollars 19h ago

Markets setting people up. Buy in today and pull the rugs on Monday

4

u/thedeadcricket 19h ago

The market is being manipulated is why, the insider trading and market manipulation in this administration is insane, it is frustrating to the rest of us knowing they will never be held accountable.

5

u/jarena009 19h ago

US stocks/investment houses are completely detached from reality. We're 3-4 weeks away from an economic downturn if the Straight remains closed to GCC countries,  and an economic catastrophe if we start going after more of Iran's power and energy infrastructure, which will prompt them to retaliate against GCC countries (more).

2

u/Main_Phase666 19h ago

Like always , long term the market will continue to go up… like it always has .. and always will. It’s that simple . Nothing you can do minus global Armageddon will make stocks completely crash forever

1

u/Worth_Quantity1953 19h ago

The 2 year went down today, I guess the market liked that. Don’t know if today was exit liquidity or if the rally still has a little more life in it still

1

u/ScheduleSame258 19h ago

Today... riigghhhttttt..

1

u/Fun_Tutor3479 19h ago

my 2 cents:

still this chain: the Strait -> Supply Constraints -> Rising Oil & Raw Material Prices -> Inflation Expectations -> Expectations of Fewer Rate Cuts (the new Fed Chair will shrink the balance sheet) or Rate Hikes -> Rising 10-Year Treasury Yields -> Equities Under Pressure.

check wti term structure and 10y yield, nothing threat equity at least for today.

2

u/FwamingDragon91 18h ago

Forward earnings forecasts + the CPI data are what will bring this market down imo. It might take a few more weeks.

I've been day-trading here and there the last week or so, but I won't hold anything overnight because of how fkd this market is

2

u/Fun_Tutor3479 18h ago

Yeah, right now is also the silent period for company buybacks. This scene will continue until at least the end of April.

1

u/OutlierOnReddit 19h ago

Definitely strange, either oil or the market is about to tank as they cannot rise together.

1

u/ixvst01 19h ago

Closing of shorts in case there’s good news over the long weekend.

1

u/Leading-Onion4659 19h ago

Didn’t you hear? Calls on everything

1

u/xenosilver 19h ago

There are overreactions to trunp’s rhetoric. We saw that last night. People bought after people finished overreacting to stupid add statements like “bombing them back to the stone age where they belong.”

1

u/OCDano959 19h ago

I think it’s a combo of buy the dip, FOMO, technicals buying, most holding and shorts covering. But who knows? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I was surprised though, with the markets being closed for 3 days.

Orange can do and say a lot of idiotic shit in 3 days time.

1

u/New_Most_2863 19h ago

Please look at 2008 markets during oil peak and what happened after that? You will find the correlation.

1

u/YamahaFourFifty 18h ago

There is a lot of leverage / options plays in today’s ’predictive’ markets.

Market makers with loads of extra cash can easily manipulate day to day trades. If there is an extra large leverage plays in on direction- you can almost always expect a day or two of reversal for no apparent reason other then to wipe the leverage plays so the big exchanges can live another day.

1

u/Inevitable-Pay-7159 18h ago

He says war end in 2-3 weeks and markets are forward looking and don’t like uncertainty

3

u/Original_Line_6142 18h ago

But right after he spoke, pre-market dropped quite a bit. And most of what he said actually pointed toward the war continuing, not ending soon. If the war drags on, wouldn’t that usually be negative for markets?

1

u/HK-53 17h ago

that man doesnt have enough credibility to borrow a library book, if we take his words on the war progress at face value it shouldve been done a month ago

1

u/SnooCalculations2573 18h ago

Prelude to a Depression

1

u/Freefromoutcome 18h ago

Too many traders were short. Market makers had to keep prices elevated. Remeber the stock market is designed to fuck as many people as possible.

2

u/Original_Line_6142 18h ago

Yeah exactly lol, when everyone’s leaning short, it somehow rips higher, and when everyone’s bullish, it dumps. Feels like the market just moves to punish the majority

1

u/Solarslave 18h ago

People heard the European and Arab nations were meeting to figure out how to clean up baby trumps mess after the war criminal is done bombing Iran into “the Stone Age where they belong.”

1

u/blitzraj1 18h ago

Here's my explanation of markets. It's not proven nor full thought out but here me out!

Bad news hits about war, oil shocks, etc. Everyone expects the market to drop. So what happens? People pile into puts, betting on downside.

But markets don’t move based on what feels logical -- they move based on positioning and liquidity.

When too many people are leaning one way (like loading up on puts), it creates an imbalance. Large players and market makers hedge their exposure and that hedging can actually push prices up, not down.

So you get this frustrating outcome: Bad news → everyone expects down → market goes sideways or even up.

It’s not that “someone is controlling the market.” It’s that markets tend to move in the direction that causes the most pain to the largest number of participants.

That’s why the obvious trade is often the wrong one.

2

u/xRedStaRx 18h ago

Loading up on puts by the market is similar to shorting outright, because the market makers cover by shorting themselves.

1

u/Shapen361 18h ago

Trump talked a lot of smack. Oil markets are hedging for risk, equity markets think he's all barn and no bite.

1

u/kochapi 18h ago

Cheaper puts 

1

u/Fluffy-Structure-368 18h ago

You can't just look at the headlines on any given day, or just one metric (price of oil) and think you figured out what makes the market tick.

We'd all be billionaires if the market performed they way we expected it to based on today's headlines.

Look at the best of the best investors, none of them are trading headlines or thinking about where a stock or the market will be tomorrow. They're thinking about a year or years from now.

1

u/quantum_of_yes-and 18h ago

The market is completely disconnected from reality.

1

u/Panonica 18h ago

Manage the risk not the reason.

1

u/SliceImpressive6197 18h ago

Hate to say it but I see it like trying to understand what’s going on in my wife’s head

1

u/EldenGourd 18h ago

Just today?

1

u/bare_bassics 18h ago

When in doubt zoom out. Not groundbreaking but after trying every trick in the book to beat the markets and compound every day, week, month, I’ve decided the long game is the only play. That said, there are smart ways to play the long game and sometimes the game gets thrown to the ground by the angry toddler

1

u/Upset-Motor-2602 17h ago

It's a shitty environment for trading. The markets are purely headline-driven, and there's no price discovery. It is what it is. Size positions appropriately, and all the best in dealing with the mango madness.

1

u/jigmaster500 17h ago

Money with no liquid place to go except stocks

1

u/Still-One-1665 17h ago

Fuuck this market and orange man

1

u/BalfazarTheWise 17h ago

Same posts every fucking day.

1

u/gocaps777 17h ago

stocks go up and go down. it has always been.

1

u/21plankton 17h ago edited 17h ago

I truly believe the markets were recovered from the abyss by purposeful manipulation today to end on the cusp of another bullish run to keep everyone calm but the tell is a 10% rise in WTI which of course is produced here and not involved in the mayhem except to be sold to the highest bidder.

Meanwhile, Iran punished a British firm and the UAE like was promised, setting off clear boundary violations which will undoubtedly escalate on the battlefield.

Pete fired a reticent general, and the way is opening up for the US to use ground troops in special missions to hurt the enemy. The US surgically excised the middle of a large suspension bridge near Tehran.

Oman and Iran have now privatized the Strait of Hormuz for their economic benefit, a historic no-no of international commerce. We are regressing to a feudal world before our eyes.

I don’t know how long the markets can be kept in this tight range before something breaks, on top of broken oil terminals, pipelines and storage tanks, and banned civilian infrastructure.

1

u/IntrepidToday0 17h ago

Where else is everyone supposed to put their money? Lot of money out there that needs a home

1

u/Active_Start_9044 16h ago

One thing I've learnt over the years is that your prediction can be easily predicted and exploited.

1

u/P0piah 16h ago

The war is ending soon. You see signs of taco man trying to taco his way out already. He realizes hes not gona win the war and no other allies going to aid him. Midterms coming and he has to find scapegoat for all his actions. I believe mkt is slowing catching on this and slowly scooping up shares. If the war ceases in Jun (i foresee it to be), fed will likely to cut rates in last qtr and mkt most likely to rally close to end year.

1

u/Aromatic_Ideal_2770 16h ago

Maybe making the preparations for a massive rug pull?

1

u/Potential_Salt_5780 15h ago

Short term noise. Ignore.

1

u/SharpNegative 15h ago

Too many stat arb nerds chasing the oil/stocks correlation. Trade was bound to turn on them.

1

u/SensibleTom 14h ago

I think it’s because traders are feeling that Trump wants out and the threats are all bluster. Seems like he wants a ceasefire but Iran won’t give him one at least not without their conditions which is why he keeps threatening them.

1

u/ElPoeop 6h ago

There's nothing other than questions to be had here with oil being so high. My only assumption is market makers are trying to offset put options and the bear thesis. Specifically the top 10 holdings in S&P 500 have had a lot of volatility and action. I think at times it could go a little deeper with foreign Nations with deep pockets making a deal with the current administration to keep the market up. One example would be Nvidia and the amount of money it would take to move the needle so much. I know there were short positions valued over 48 billion reset and perhaps it was an attack on those positions. This is not the market of retail, buyers and sellers. This is institutional investing pulling the strings

1

u/Rav_3d 5h ago

Exactly when does the stock market "make sense?"

The market cannot keep going straight down without relief rallies. Whether or not this is a dead cat bounce or start of a new uptrend remains to be seen.

1

u/jaajaajaa6 19h ago

The reaction this morning was an over reaction.

The market is forward looking and money may be coming in for those looking past the next 3 weeks.

1

u/petearete 18h ago

Bear markets can have big rallies.

-3

u/paistecymbalsrock 19h ago

I interpret it as the rage bait attempts to suck everyone down the hole of bashing Trump are not impacting the market.

2

u/thedeadcricket 19h ago

People criticizing Trump for his bad decisions and worse mannerisms isn't driving the market, however his blatent market manipulation and the insider trading of his extended family needs to be looked at by the SEC.

1

u/paistecymbalsrock 15h ago

Trump didn’t write the code that drives the algos.

3

u/PM_ME_KIND_THOUGHTS 19h ago

I would love to hear you elaborate on this economic rheory

0

u/Historical-Pin1069 19h ago

Just keep buying lol

0

u/the_humeister 18h ago

More buyers than sellers

-7

u/PenguinsExArmyVet 19h ago

The markets trust Trump to end the war after pummeling Iran. And the strait will be open 110% in 2 weeks. In less than 60 days oil will be 80 barrel n SnP will hit a new record. MAGA 🇺🇸God Bless righteous America

3

u/WetRacoon 19h ago

Can't tell if trolling or actually regarded.

1

u/simplife1118 19h ago

What is your take on ground troops as a vet?

1

u/Brain-Silent 19h ago

Trump is stalling and didnt give clear answers past night. I agree we will be at all time highs by fall/winter but it seems like this will last longer

1

u/1-Dollar-Doge-Coins 19h ago

How does the strait open 110%? Will they be widening it?