The Daily Wire — Monday, March 17, 2026

Happy St. Patrick's Day. You are going to need the luck.

We are now 17 days into a shooting war with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz — the bottleneck that carries 20% of the world's oil — is a mess. Tankers are rerouted or sitting idle. Oil spiked to $120 in the first week, settled around $94 where it sits today. Before the war started, it was $70.

That is not a market move. That is a geopolitical tax on everything you buy — gas, groceries, heating, shipping. And it is not going away until the shooting stops and the Strait reopens.

Meanwhile, President Trump launched new trade investigations last Tuesday targeting China, the EU, Taiwan, and a dozen other countries. This comes after the Supreme Court killed his original tariffs in February. He slapped a temporary 10% tariff on everything under a different law — that one expires in July — and now he's racing to make new permanent ones before the clock runs out. So we have a hot war AND a trade war running at the same time.

Here is what that combination is doing to your money and what to do about it.

The Big Picture — Plain English

The economy itself is fine. Manufacturing is growing. People are working. Companies are not defaulting on their debt. This is important because it means we are not in a recession. The floor is solid.

But oil at $94 changes the math. Gas is up 80 cents from a month ago. Diesel is pushing $5. That hits truckers, farmers, builders, and eventually everyone at the grocery store. Europe is getting crushed even worse — their energy costs are going through the roof and their economy was already shaky. The euro is falling against the dollar.

The stock market knows something is wrong. Only 4 out of 10 stocks are in uptrends right now. Big tech — the Amazons, Apples, Microsofts, Metas — are weak. Crypto is weak. The stuff that worked for the last two years is NOT working right now.

What IS working: Gold and silver miners. Uranium stocks. Solar energy. Utilities. Value stocks — the boring, dividend-paying kind. The US dollar. Things that either benefit from high oil and chaos, or things that hold up when everything else gets shaky.

What This Means For You

If your retirement account is mostly in the S&P 500 index or tech stocks, you are sitting in the path of the storm. The war and the tariffs are headwinds for those positions and you are not getting paid to take that risk right now.

The opportunity is in the rotation. Money is moving from tech and growth into hard assets — the stuff you can touch, dig out of the ground, or plug into the grid. Gold miners, silver miners, uranium, solar, real estate, and good old-fashioned value stocks are where the strength is.

Paid subscribers got our full model portfolio yesterday — 14 specific positions with exact allocations, entry levels, and sell triggers. Plus the three signals we are watching that will tell us when this regime changes. If you want to know exactly what to own and when to sell it:

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Three Numbers That Tell The Story

War Watch

The Strait of Hormuz is still disrupted. Trump is building a coalition to escort tankers through, but it is slow going. He threatened to hit Iran's oil infrastructure on Kharg Island if they keep attacking ships. 90% of Iran's oil exports leave from that island. If it gets hit, oil goes a lot higher than $94. If a ceasefire happens, oil drops fast and the entire market rotation reverses.

That is the single biggest variable for your portfolio right now. Everything else — tariffs, Fed policy, earnings — is secondary to whether this war escalates or ends.

We are tracking it daily. Paid subscribers will get an immediate alert if the situation changes enough to warrant portfolio action.

Tomorrow: The Fed meets this week. Does the Iran war change their rate decision? We will break down what to expect and what it means for your positions.

EnergyMacro Research — Macro Intelligence for Real-Asset Investors Get the model portfolio → [Subscribe to the Weekly Wire]