"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." — Mike Tyson.
This week's punch is called Iran.
The circus caught fire — literally
While the LinkedIn crowd was posting motivational quotes about "buying the dip" and "thinking long term," the Dow Jones plunged 453 points on a bloody Friday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq joined the bloodbath. The reason? Oil shooting up like a SpaceX rocket — except in the wrong direction for anyone long on tech.
The war between the US and Iran stopped being "geopolitical tension" — that fancy term suit-wearing analysts use so they don't have to say "shit, this could escalate" — and became the dominant market driver. Period.
Crude oil had its best week in ages. And when I say best, I mean best for the barrel. For your stock-investing wallet? Not so much.
The Oil Matrix
Let me break down the dynamics without the boring econ-speak that the Wall Street bros love to throw around to sound smart.
War in the Middle East = risk of oil supply disruption. Risk of disruption = barrel price goes up. Barrel price goes up = cost of everything goes up. Cost of everything goes up = inflation. Inflation rising = Fed doesn't cut rates. High rates = growth stocks get hammered.
It's a chain reaction. Basic physics. It's Newton, not Warren Buffett.
And what did Wall Street do? Acted surprised. As if nobody had seen this movie before. As if 1973, 1979, 1990, and 2008 didn't exist in the history books.
Trump in the eye of the hurricane
The market now watches every move Trump makes or word he says over the weekend. Every tweet, every statement, every move. Dow and S&P futures open Sunday night, and the market will price in any escalation — or de-escalation — in real time.
Here's the deal: when the President of the United States is the main variable in your investment thesis, you're not investing. You're gambling. And gambling without an edge is for suckers.
Nassim Taleb would say we're in a classic "fat tails" environment — the thick tails of the probability distribution. Translation: the improbable became probable, and anyone who didn't hedge is going to pay dearly.
Who wins in this chaos?
It's not all carnage. General Dynamics — the weapons and military equipment manufacturer — is near a buy point. HCA Healthcare, TJX, AT&T, Equinix... all resilient. Palantir, that darling of the spy-movie crowd (rightfully so, in this case), leads a list of 23 stocks that are defying the market selloff.
See the pattern? Defense, healthcare, dividends, data, and intelligence. When the world catches fire, smart money doesn't run for the exits — it switches rooms.
Meanwhile, Nvidia dropped. Oracle and OpenAI supposedly canceled plans to expand an AI data center. The narrative that "AI fixes everything" got a reality check. Because as incredible as ChatGPT is, it doesn't stop missiles.
CPI is coming — and it could be ugly
Next week brings inflation data (CPI), and unemployment already ticked up. If CPI comes in hot — and with oil at these levels, the chance is real — the Fed is cornered. Cutting rates with inflation rising is monetary suicide. Keeping rates high with the economy slowing is a slow suffocation.
It's the classic "rock and a hard place." Or, as Walter White would say: "I am the one who knocks" — except this time, the one knocking at the door is stagflation.
So what do you do?
I'm not going to give you a buy or sell recommendation. Anyone who does that without knowing you is a fraud.
But I'll tell you what the greats do in moments like this: they protect the downside first. Buffett is sitting on a mountain of cash. Taleb built his entire career on protection against the black swan. Ed Thorp never entered a position without calculating the risk of ruin.
A cash position isn't cowardice. It's intelligence. It's having ammo when everyone else already fired their rounds.
The question left is simple and uncomfortable: are you positioned to survive the next punch in the face, or are you just hoping it won't come?
Because it always comes.
