“Beware the Ides of March.”
— A soothsayer to Julius Caesar, 44 BC
Caesar ignored it. The market couldn’t.
On March 15, 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times on the steps of the Roman Senate. This March 15, markets took their own round of body blows. A jobs report that missed by 142,000. Oil past $100 a barrel for the first time in years. The S&P 500’s third losing week in a row. Not mortal wounds, but they sting.
This week, we’re trying something new: a War Room Briefing Card at the top. Five things, sixty seconds, and you’re caught up. Let us know if you like it.
Let’s get into it.
⚡ NEW FORMAT: War Room Briefing Card
Five things. Sixty seconds.
Oil crossed $100. The Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for 20% of global oil, is effectively closed after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran killed Supreme Leader Khamenei. WTI crude surged to around $101/barrel, up from $67 before the conflict began.
The jobs market cracked. February came in at -92,000 jobs, below economists’ expectations of a gain of 50,000. That’s a 142,000-job miss, and the third monthly decline in five months. (BLS via CNBC)
S&P 500 hit its lowest close of the year. The index dropped 1.6% this week, closing at 6,632 on Friday. That puts it about 5% below its recent high. Three straight weeks of losses, the worst streak in about a year.
Oracle soared, Adobe sank. Cloud is winning. Oracle beat on earnings and raised guidance, jumping 10%. Adobe’s CEO announced his departure mid-earnings call, and the stock dropped 7.6%.
Bitcoin is outperforming everything, relatively. While stocks sold off, Bitcoin held above $70,000 and is up roughly 11% since the Iran conflict began. Gold is near record highs above $5,100. Crypto is acting like a geopolitical hedge, and it’s not the first time.
Table of Contents
The Week in Review
Markets at a Glance
Week ending March 13, 2026
| Asset | Close | Weekly % | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 6,632 | -1.6% | 3rd straight losing week, lowest close of 2026 |
| Dow Jones | ~46,558 | -0.3% | Held up better than the broader market |
| Nasdaq | ~22,105 | -0.7% | Tech split: Oracle up, Adobe down hard |
| Plebdex | ~19,000 | -2.0% | See live tracking |
| Gold | $5,119/oz | -1.0% | Holding near record highs, slight pullback on dollar strength |
| Silver | $84.44/oz | +1.1% | Steady near highs despite broader market weakness |
| Oil (WTI) | ~$101/bbl | +51% since conflict | Strait of Hormuz effectively closed |
| Bitcoin | $70,798 | +11% since Iran war | Acting as geopolitical hedge |
| USD Index | Strengthening | War premium driving dollar demand | |
| 10-Yr Treasury | 4.15% | +19 bps | Yields rising as rate cut bets fade |
The big story is oil. Everything else this week, the tech earnings, the jobs miss, the Fed’s silence, all of it filters through $100 oil. When 20% of global oil supply is choked off overnight, inflation expectations reignite, rate-cut hopes evaporate, and equity multiples compress. That’s the chain reaction playing out right now. Gold is holding steady above $5,100 near all-time highs. It has already been priced in the geopolitical fear over the past few weeks. Silver is also quietly firm, hovering around $84.
Earnings Corner
Oracle (ORCL): Beat and raise. Stock up 10%.
Oracle reported Q3 earnings of $1.79/share on $17.19 billion in revenue, clearing expectations on both lines. The real headline: cloud infrastructure revenue grew 84% year-over-year to $4.9 billion. The company also raised its fiscal 2027 revenue guidance by $1 billion, to $90 billion. Wall Street loved it.
The AI infrastructure buildout is real, and Oracle is sitting right in the middle of it. If you’re tracking the AI trade but don’t want to buy NVIDIA at a premium, Oracle is a quieter way to play the same picks-and-shovels thesis. (CNBC)
Adobe (ADBE): CEO departure plus guidance miss. Stock down 7.6%.
Adobe reported roughly in line with estimates, then dropped the bombshell: CEO Shantanu Narayen is stepping down. Leadership transitions at $200B+ companies spook investors even when the fundamentals are fine, and Adobe’s AI monetization story was already under scrutiny. The stock sank 7.6%. Watch for a replacement announcement.
Ulta Beauty (ULTA): Plunged on earnings.
Ulta missed expectations and cut guidance, sending the stock sharply lower. Consumer discretionary is showing cracks. There’s an old theory called the “lipstick indicator” that says people trade up to small luxuries in tough times, not down. So, when do even lipstick sales slow? That’s a yellow flag on consumer health.
The Fed File
The Federal Reserve held rates steady at 3.5–3.75% at its January meeting and is widely expected to do the same when it meets Tuesday and Wednesday (March 17–18).
Here’s the bind the Fed is in. Inflation was cooling. February CPI came in at +2.4% year-over-year, Core CPI at +2.5%. Real progress. But now oil is above $100, and that’s going to work its way into March inflation data over the next few weeks. Energy touches everything: shipping, manufacturing, food production.
The Fed can’t cut rates into an oil-driven inflation spike without losing credibility. And it can’t raise rates into a weakening labor market without triggering a recession. So it’s going to sit on its hands, say “data dependent,” and hope the Strait of Hormuz reopens.
Watch Wednesday’s statement for any change in language around “inflation risks.” That’s where the real tell will be.
Crypto Check
Bitcoin held above $70,000 this week while stocks sold off, and that’s notable. Is the old narrative that Bitcoin is a risk-on asset that falls when stocks fall? It’s being stress-tested right now. Instead, BTC is behaving more like digital gold, catching the kind of geopolitical safe-haven flows that traditionally go to physical gold and the dollar.
The big question is whether this holds. Bitcoin has spiked on geopolitical events before, only to give back the gains once tensions eased. But the scoreboard right now is hard to ignore: Bitcoin up 11% since the Iran conflict began, gold steady near all-time highs above $5,100, and the S&P 500 down 1.6%.
Ethereum and the broader alt market haven’t matched BTC’s strength. That tells you this is macro-driven demand, not broad crypto enthusiasm.
Economic Data Recap
Week of March 9–13, 2026
| Day | Report | Period | Actual | Forecast | Previous |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | CPI (Monthly) | February | +0.3% | +0.3% | +0.4% |
| Tuesday | CPI (Year-over-Year) | February | +2.4% | +2.5% | +2.7% |
| Tuesday | Core CPI (YoY) | February | +2.5% | +2.6% | +2.6% |
| Friday | Nonfarm Payrolls | February | -92,000 | +50,000 | -18,000 |
| Friday | Unemployment Rate | February | 4.1% | 4.0% | 4.0% |
The job number is what matters. Losing 92,000 jobs is not a rounding error. That’s real. Three monthly declines in five months. The labor market was the one thing holding the “soft landing” story together, and if it keeps softening while inflation re-accelerates (thanks, oil), we’re looking at stagflation. That’s the worst of all worlds: prices rising while the economy slows.
CPI coming in slightly below forecast was a small win. But that data was collected before oil broke $100. March’s CPI print, due in April, is going to be ugly.
The Week Ahead
Earnings Calendar
March 16–20, 2026
This is a quieter week for major earnings after Oracle and Adobe dominated the spotlight. Keep an eye on any retailers or consumer staples companies reporting. Given Ulta’s miss, any weakness there will add to the consumer health narrative.
Economic Calendar
| Day | Report | What to Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | FOMC Meeting Begins | Rate decision Wednesday |
| Wednesday | FOMC Rate Decision | Hold expected at 3.5–3.75%. Watch the statement. |
| Wednesday | Fed Chair Press Conference | Powell’s language on oil/inflation risks |
| Friday | Existing Home Sales | Housing market health amid rising rates |
The FOMC meeting is the week’s centerpiece. The decision itself (hold) is priced in. What matters is:
– Does the Fed change its inflation language?
– Does Powell signal that rate cuts are off the table for 2026?
– How does the committee frame the job’s deterioration?
Markets have been pulling back rate cut expectations. If Powell’s tone turns hawkish and cites oil-driven inflation risk, expect another leg down in equities.
Closing Thoughts
The Big Picture
The Iran conflict has fundamentally changed the macro setup for 2026 in just two weeks. Here’s where things stand:
- Energy prices are re-inflationary. Oil above $100 doesn’t have to stay there to do damage. It just has to stay elevated long enough to flow into everything else. Airlines, trucking, food production, and manufacturing: they all absorb this. Expect it to show up in the March and April data.
- The labor market is wobbling. One bad jobs report is noise. Three in five months is a trend. If this continues, recession risk jumps from around 15% to 35% in the probability models.
- The Fed is trapped. Stagflation is when growth slows while inflation rises. It’s the scenario where the Fed has no good options. Not the base case yet, but worth preparing for.
What to Watch
Oil is the key variable. If the Strait of Hormuz reopens in the next two to four weeks, everything reverses quickly: oil prices drop, inflation fears ease, the Fed has room to cut, and stocks recover. The IEA announced a strategic petroleum reserve release, the largest in history, to buy time. But that’s a bridge, not a solution.
If oil stays above $100 through April, expect S&P 500 support around 6,400 to get tested. Defensive sectors such as utilities, consumer staples, and healthcare are starting to outperform. Commodity names benefit.
Energy stocks are the obvious play, but they’re already up big. The cleaner trade at this point might be energy infrastructure (think pipelines, storage, refining) rather than exploration and production. Many E&P names are already priced for $100+ oil.
The Oracle signal. Cloud infrastructure demand is not slowing down. AI capex is continuing at full speed despite the macro noise. If you believe the AI buildout has years of runway, and the data suggests it does, any broad market pullback is a better entry point for quality AI names than where we were six weeks ago.
Bitcoin’s test. If BTC holds above $70K through the FOMC meeting and into next week, the geopolitical hedge narrative gains real credibility. If it fades back to $65K once tensions ease, it was a trade, not a trend. Watch the $70K level.
The Ides Takeaway
Caesar ignored the warning and walked into the Senate. The market got its own warnings: three weeks of signals, a jobs miss, and oil at $67. It walked in anyway. Now it’s dealing with the consequences.
The good news? Markets recover. They always have. The S&P 500 is 5% off its high, not 30%. The economy is still growing, just unevenly. The best investors use moments like this to get clear on what they own and why. Not to panic-sell, nor to buy the dip blindly.
Know your thesis. Size your positions accordingly. And maybe don’t ignore the soothsayer next time.
More next Sunday.
— The Sunday Pleb
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. investingforplebs.com is not a registered investment advisor. Please consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions. All data sourced from publicly available reports, including BLS, CNBC, Reuters, GoldPrice.org, Al Jazeera, and Yahoo Finance.
Leave a Reply