Good Afternoon. If you had "stocks fall, bonds fall, gold falls, oil rises, and the VIX spikes 17%" on your Friday bingo card, congratulations -- you were the only one. Today was supposed to be about options expiration mechanics and S&P 500 rebalancing. Instead, it became a reckoning.

The S&P slid 1.5% to its lowest close since November, gold suffered its ugliest week since the 2013 crash, and the VIX finally broke above 28 as triple witching collided with a war that refuses to de-escalate. The only green on the screen? FedEx, which somehow crushed earnings hard enough to rally through the carnage. Fourth straight losing week for all three major indices. The weekend can't come fast enough.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. FedEx Delivers the Quarter of Its Life

The News: FedEx reported fiscal Q3 adjusted earnings of $5.25 per share on revenue of $24 billion -- smashing the Street's $4.17 EPS estimate by 26% and topping the $23.4 billion revenue consensus. Revenue climbed 8% year-over-year. Chief Customer Officer Brie Carere said FedEx achieved "its strongest quarter of profitable U.S. market-share gains in over 20 years." The company raised its full-year earnings outlook to $19.30-$20.10 (vs. $18.70 consensus) and confirmed its Freight division spinoff remains on track for June 1.

Why It Matters: On a day when the S&P fell 1.5%, FedEx rallied -- and that tells you something. The "One FedEx" integration strategy is finally showing up in the numbers: domestic market share gains, margin expansion, and a Freight spinoff that could unlock billions in shareholder value. For investors, FedEx is becoming the rare logistics company that's winning despite $5 diesel and war-driven shipping volatility.

What to Watch: The Freight spinoff investor day on April 8. That's when Wall Street will price the standalone entity -- and the sum-of-the-parts math could get very interesting.

Source: FedEx Newsroom

2. Triple Witching Meets the Iran War and Nobody Wins

The News: Friday was the first triple-witching options expiration of 2026 -- the quarterly event when stock options, index options, and index futures all expire simultaneously -- and it collided with both the S&P 500's quarterly rebalancing and the worst geopolitical backdrop since the pandemic. Nearly 60% of expiring S&P 500 index options were puts, according to SpotGamma. Citadel Securities estimated that roughly 35% of all U.S. options exposure rolled off today. The S&P 500 fell 1.56% to 6,503, its lowest close since November.

Why It Matters: Triple witching typically generates noise, not signal. But this one was different: the massive put skew means portfolio managers were aggressively hedging against further downside, and the forced selling from index rebalancing added mechanical pressure on top of the war-driven selloff. The result is a fourth consecutive losing week for all three major indices -- and a market that just closed below its 200-day moving average, a technical line that bulls really didn't want to cross.

What to Watch: What happens Monday. After triple witching, "positioning gets flushed out and reset," as one strategist put it. That means next week's moves may better reflect genuine investor conviction -- or genuine panic.

Source: MarketWatch

3. Gold Just Had Its Worst Week Since the 2013 Crash

The News: Gold fell to approximately $4,560 per troy ounce on Friday, down 9.5% for the week -- its worst weekly decline since the spring 2013 gold crash that defined an era. Silver was even uglier, losing 12.2% for the week to $73.45. The declines came despite (or because of) the worst geopolitical crisis since 2022: Iran's war has sent oil soaring, but the resulting inflation expectations have pushed bond yields sharply higher, strengthening the dollar and crushing non-yielding assets like precious metals.

Why It Matters: This is the paradox of 2026: a Middle East war should be gold's moment. Instead, the oil-driven inflation shock has traders betting that central banks will raise rates, not cut them -- Fed Funds futures now price a 1-in-3 chance of a Fed hike by year-end. For investors who bought gold as a "war hedge," the lesson is painful: gold protects against uncertainty, but it struggles when that uncertainty translates into higher real yields.

What to Watch: The $4,500 level on gold. If it breaks, the next technical support is near $4,200. But J.P. Morgan's full-year target remains $6,300, and Deutsche Bank still sees $6,000 -- both set before the war started.

Source: BullionVault

4. The Dallas Fed Just Quantified the Hormuz Nightmare

The News: The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published a research note Friday modeling the economic impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure. The findings: a one-quarter shutdown (essentially what's happening now) would push WTI to $98/barrel and lower global GDP growth by an annualized 2.9 percentage points in Q2. If the closure lasts two quarters, oil hits $115 in Q3 and GDP growth doesn't turn positive until Q4. Three quarters? Oil reaches $132 and growth stays negative through year-end 2026.

Why It Matters: This is the first rigorous Fed research putting hard numbers on the war's economic cost -- and the numbers are worse than the market's base case. The 2.9 percentage point GDP hit in Q2 would be the most severe energy-driven economic shock since the 1973 oil embargo. For investors, the key variable is duration: a quick reopening means a sharp recovery, but anything past June starts to threaten a global recession.

What to Watch: Whether the rest of the Fed system echoes Dallas's analysis. If this framing enters the FOMC discussion, it could shift the committee from "patient" to "preemptive" -- either way.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

5. Micron Posted Record Earnings, Then Fell 4% Anyway.

The News: Micron Technology shares fell roughly 4% on Friday to around $438, the day after reporting fiscal Q2 revenue of $23.86 billion (196% year-over-year growth) and EPS of $12.20 that crushed estimates by nearly $4 billion. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra guided Q3 to $33.5 billion in revenue at 81% gross margins. Despite 38 buy ratings and a $432 consensus target already in the rearview, the stock sold off alongside the broader semiconductor complex.

Why It Matters: This is the textbook "sell the news" in a risk-off environment. Micron beat every metric imaginable, but the market has bigger things to worry about: helium supply concerns (critical for chip manufacturing) from the Middle East crisis, rising yields that compress tech multiples, and a VIX at 28 that makes owning any high-beta semiconductor a white-knuckle proposition. For investors, the quality of the quarter isn't in question -- the willingness of the market to reward it is.

What to Watch: Whether MU holds the $430 support level next week. The AI memory thesis is intact, but in this tape, even the best stories get punished.

Source: CNBC

1. Iran's Supreme Leader Doubles Down: "Safety Must Be Taken Away" from Enemies

The News: Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a defiant statement Friday, declaring that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed and vowing that "safety must be taken away" from Iran's adversaries. He warned neighboring countries hosting U.S. military bases to "shut them down as soon as possible" and pledged to continue strikes on American installations across the region. Qatar confirmed it will charge $2 million per tanker to transit the Strait, and Ras Laffan repairs remain a 3-to-5-year project.

Why It Matters: Every day the Strait stays closed, the economic damage compounds -- the Dallas Fed just quantified it at 2.9% of global GDP growth per quarter. Khamenei's rhetoric is escalatory, not conciliatory, which means the "weeks, not months" timeline that some Wall Street strategists are clinging to looks increasingly optimistic. For oil markets, the supply gap is now structural: Hormuz closed, Ras Laffan damaged, and Iran charging extortion-level transit fees.

What to Watch: Whether any of Iran's 15 neighbors respond to the base-closure ultimatum. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar are the obvious pressure points -- and any diplomatic break from the U.S. coalition would reshape the war's trajectory.

Source: Wall Street Journal

2. Global Bond Yields Spike to Multi-Year Highs

The News: The global bond selloff deepened Friday. UK 10-year Gilt yields hit their highest level since 2008. Germany's Bund yields reached levels not seen since 2011. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields climbed to their highest since July 2025, with the 2-year rate rising six basis points to 3.86%. Fed Funds futures now price in a one-in-three chance that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates before year-end -- a remarkable shift from the rate-cut consensus that prevailed just three weeks ago.

Why It Matters: This is the scariest chart on Wall Street right now: stocks down, bonds down, gold down -- the only thing going up is the cost of money. When oil-driven inflation forces central banks to contemplate hiking instead of cutting, there's genuinely no place to hide. For investors, the 60/40 portfolio is offering zero diversification benefit for the fourth straight week. For consumers, mortgage rates just jumped another 11 basis points, and the housing market's modest recovery is being strangled in real time.

What to Watch: Whether the ECB or Bank of England signals a rate hike at their next meetings. If central banks start raising rates into an oil shock, the stagflation trade becomes the dominant macro narrative for the rest of 2026.

Source: Bloomberg

3. Trump Calls NATO Allies "Cowards" as U.S. Deploys More Marines to the Gulf

The News: President Trump lashed out at NATO allies on Friday, calling them "cowards" for refusing to join the U.S.-led effort to secure and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced the deployment of additional Marine units to the Gulf region, signaling a potential escalation in U.S. military involvement. Brent crude traded near $110, up about 6% for the week, as the diplomatic isolation of the U.S.-Israel coalition became more apparent.

Why It Matters: The U.S. is now simultaneously fighting a war, trying to reopen a shipping lane, releasing sanctioned Iranian oil, and calling its allies names -- all at once. The lack of international coalition support is a significant development: it means the military burden (and the political risk) falls almost entirely on Washington and Jerusalem. For markets, Trump's bellicose NATO rhetoric adds another layer of geopolitical uncertainty on top of an already-fraught situation.

What to Watch: Whether any NATO ally reverses course over the weekend. The UK and France are the most likely candidates, but so far both have stayed on the sidelines. The longer the Strait stays closed without a multinational response, the more permanent the oil supply disruption looks.

Source: Euronews

Q: What's brown and sticky?

A: A stick.

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In finance, the point at which investors abandon their positions en masse, selling regardless of price or fundamentals, typically marking the climax of a prolonged downturn and often signaling that the worst of the selling is nearing its end.

"After four straight weeks of losses and the VIX spiking above 28, my portfolio manager said we hadn't seen real capitulation yet -- which, frankly, made me feel worse, not better."

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