๐ข๏ธ The waterway that controls 20% of the world's oil โ and why it's been shut down all week
๐ The jobs report that had Wall Street doing a double take
๐ก The chip CEO who got on an earnings call and told analysts to look him in the eye
โ Plus, the cloud stock that went up while everything else went down.
โ Make yourself comfy ๐๏ธ and let's get into it...
Market Crowdโ โHow the market did this week.
Dow
47,501.55
-1,476.37
-3.01%
S&P
6,740.02
-138.86
-2.02%
Nasdaq
22,387.68
-280.53
-1.24%
*As of market close on Friday, March 6th.
Pre-Market Playโ โA market beat to start your week. โ
War
Outkast
0:443:45
๐ช Strait up chaos...
The Strait of Hormuz (the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that about 20% of the world's oil passes through) is closed and oil is up 25% for the week.
โ Hereโs whatโs been going downโฆ
โ Last Saturday, the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
โ Iran fired back by targeting Amazon Web Services (AMZN) data centers in the UAE and Bahrain.
โ Three facilities went offline, taking banking apps and payment services across the UAE with them.
โ Over 20,000 flights got grounded, Dubai International Airport closed and more than a million people were stranded worldwide.
โ Letโs talk statsโฆ
โ โBrent crude โน๏ธ hit $87.27 a barrel Friday, a 52-week high.
โ WTI (US crude) hit above $86, up 28% for the week.
โ The average gallon of gas jumped 27 cents to $3.25.
โ And about bout 400 oil tankers are sitting stuck in the Gulf with nowhere to go.
โ Toupee Fiasco (Trump) met with seven major defense company CEOs at the White House Friday and they agreed to quadruple production of weapons.
โ Lockheed Martin (LMT) put out a formal statement saying they already started months ago.
โ The Trump admin also rolled out a $20 billion reinsurance program for oil tankers.
โ The problem?
โ The ship owners arenโt afraid of losing money.
โ Theyโre afraid of getting hit by a missile.
โ Iranโs Foreign Minister said straight up: no ceasefire, no negotiations.
โ And if the US sends ground troops in? โA big disaster for them.โ
โ Toupee Fiasco said the war could last four to five weeks, or โfar longer than that.โ
โ ๐ฅก The Takeaway: Oil, defense, and energy names are the trades this week. Watch XLE, USO, LMT, NOC, RTX, and PLTR. Travel stocks stay under pressure until airspace reopens. The trigger that flips everything: any sign of a ceasefire or the Strait of Hormuz reopening.
โน๏ธ What's that?โ โBrent crude is the global benchmark for oil prices, set by trades happening in the North Sea. When you hear oil is up or down, Brent is usually the number they're talking about.
๐ก Do you see me blinking?
Broadcom (AVGO)'s CEO, Hock Tan, said earlier this week that AI chip revenue in 2027 could pass $100 billion.
โ Now Marvell (MRVL) is dropping its own number to match.
โ Let me back up for a sec in case you're wondering WTF is Marvell.
โ Marvell (MRVL) is another company that makes chips for data centers, the buildings full of servers that power AI.
โ And their CEO, Matt Murphy, got on their earnings call this week, looked analysts in the eye, and said: โDo you see me blinking? You donโt.โ
You might not have heard of them because they don't get the Nvidia treatment.
โ No hype, no viral moments. Just data centers and AI demand, building something real.
โ Hereโs whatโs got Murphy saying it with his chestโฆ
โ The company expects revenue growth to speed up every quarter of 2027.
โ For Q1 2027, MRVL is calling for $2.4 billion in revenue, above the $2.27 billion Wall Street was expecting.
โ MRVL shot up 18% on earnings.
โ Most CEOs wonโt even commit to next quarter.
โ Murphy said every quarter of next year. Not one. Every. Quarter.
โ Thatโs not a forecast. Thatโs a statement.
โ ๐ฅก The Takeaway: MRVLโs 18% jump on earnings confirms the AI chip trade still has legs. Watch for follow-through on MRVL and keep AVGO on your radar since both names move on the same AI demand story.
$MRVL stock over the past year
๐ฎ Wish you had a crystal ball to predict the market?
โ Yeah, donโt we all. But letโs be real. There's no such thing. So, while you're over there reading tea leaves, weโll be over here using actual data.
Meet Swingset, the swing trading app that digs through 15+ years of stock prices, uncovering trends that repeat over 70% of the time. Itโs like that โfriendโ who always has insider info. Except legal.
Pick a trend, check your charts, and trade smarter, not harder. Our members are cashing in, like Robert with his $1,206 win.
The U.S. economy was supposed to add 50,000 jobs in February.
โ Instead, it lost 92,000.
โ The third drop in five months.
โ Health care lost 28,000 jobs after 30,000 Kaiser Permanente workers went on strike.
โ The federal government cut 10,000 more jobs (bringing it to a total of 330,000 positions, or 11% of the entire workforce, wiped out since Toupee Fiasco (Trump)โs push to shrink the government).
โ Manufacturing lost 12,000. Tariffs were supposed to fix that. They haven't.
โ Tech and media shed 11,000, with AI cuts hitting every month for a year straight.
โ The unemployment rate climbed to 4.4%.
โ Only 62% of working-age adults are employed or looking for work, the lowest rate since December 2021.
โ Wages rose 0.4% for the month and 3.8% from last year.
โ Hereโs the problemโฆ
โ The Fed (the U.S. central bank) has two jobs: keep prices from rising too fast and keep people employed.
โ When both go wrong at the same time, theyโre stuck.
โ Lower rates to help jobs? Prices go up.
โ Hold rates to fight rising prices? Jobs keep disappearing.
โ No clean move.
โ This pushes expectations for another interest rate cut off 'til July with potential for two cuts in 2026.
โ ๐ฅก The Takeaway: Watch the CPI report (Consumer Price Index, the governmentโs monthly measure of inflation) next week. If prices stay hot while jobs keep falling, the Fed stays stuck.
๐ซ TMYK โA quick pop quiz to help you learn about the market. The more you know!โ โ
When a stock moves up and down a lot, it has high ______.
a.) liquidity
b.) volatility
c.) guidance
โ Scroll down for the answer!
Gimme some mo' โMore news from 'round the market. โ
โ๏ธ Travel chaos hits airlinesโ Delta (DAL), United (UAL), Alaska (ALK), and Southwest (LUV) slid after the Iran war grounded flights and stranded travelers across the region [Link]
โ โ๐ญ Defense factories ramp upโ Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), and RTX (RTX) climbed after Toupee Fiasco said defense CEOs agreed to quadruple production [Link]โ
โ โ๐ง Broadcom drops a big numberโ Broadcom (AVGO) went up after its CEO said AI chip revenue could top $100B in 2027, sending Credo (CRDO) and Amphenol (APH) up too [Link]โ
โ โ๐ Okta sparks a cloud rallyโ Okta (OKTA) popped after earnings and lit up cloud names like Wix (WIX) and MongoDB (MDB) even as the rest of the market fell [Link]โ
โ โ๐งพ Berkshire turns buybacks back onโ Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) started repurchasing shares again as new CEO Greg Abel bought $15M of stock with his own paycheck [Link]โ
โ โ๐ช Palantir wins the war tradeโ Palantir (PLTR) jumped this week as the Iran war boosted its government outlook, even with Anthropic getting blacklisted by the Pentagon [Link]โ
๐คณ๐พ Let me check my palm pilot โEarnings events on deck this coming week.
โ โTuesday 4/14: CarMax (KMX), Citigroup (C), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC)
โ Wednesday 4/15: ASML (ASML), Bank of America (BAC), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Morgan Stanley (MS), PNC Financial (PNC), Progressive (PGR)
โ Thursday 4/16: Abbott (ABT), Alcoa (AA), Bank of New York Mellon (BK), Charles Schwab (SCHW), Netflix (NFLX), PepsiCo (PEP), Prologis (PLD), Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), Travelers (TRV), U.S. Bancorp (USB)
โ Friday 4/17: Ally Financial (ALLY), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), Regions Financial (RF), State Street (STT), Truist Financial (TFC) โ
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