Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

We might want to listen to what the farmers are telling us, because if they don’t grow our food we do not eat. Coming into this year, we were already facing the worst farming crisis in America in at least 50 years. Farmers all over the nation are drowning in debt, and farm bankruptcies have been soaring. In all my years, I have never seen America’s farmers so angry, and now the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has made things much worse. Spring planting season is here and there is a global scramble for whatever supplies of nitrogen fertilizer that happen to be available. As a result, prices have skyrocketed and farmers all over the planet are facing some incredibly tough choices.

That is even true here in the United States.

According to a brand new survey that was just conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation, 70 percent of U.S. farmers say that they will not be able to purchase all of the fertilizer that they need in 2026 because it has become so expensive…

Conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation April 3-11, the survey shows 70% of respondents say fertilizer is so expensive that they will not be able to buy all the fertilizer they need.

More than 5,700 farmers, both Farm Bureau members and non-members, from every state and Puerto Rico took the survey. Farm Bureau economists analyzed the results in the latest Market Intel.

The analysis reveals that almost 8 in 10 farmers in the southern U.S. say they can’t afford all needed supplies this year, followed by the Northeast and West at 69% and 66%, respectively, compared to 48% of the farmers in the Midwest.

Fertilizer prices were already at frighteningly high levels even before the war with Iran started, and since that time they have surged dramatically…

Nitrogen fertilizer prices have gone up more than 30 percent since the start of the conflict on Feb. 28, according to Market Intel. Combined fuel and fertilizer costs have also risen between 20 and 40 percent, with urea prices jumping 47 percent since late February.

Many people out there don’t seem to understand this yet, but this is going to affect all of us.

If 70 percent of U.S. farmers use less fertilizer this year, those farmers will grow less food.

If there is less food available, prices will go up.

Needless to say, food prices are already at ridiculous levels, but they are going to go even higher.

In impoverished countries, conditions will be even worse.

Due to a historic lack of nitrogen fertilizer, hundreds of millions of families that are currently barely existing “may soon find they are only able to afford little or no food”…

In many parts of the world, vulnerable families who today are currently managing to put some food on the table may soon find they are only able to afford little or no food.

“If this conflict continues, it will send shockwaves across the globe, and families who already cannot afford their next meal will be hit the hardest,” said WFP Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Carl Skau.

I wish that I could get people to understand how serious this is.

Goldman Sachs is publicly admitting that the global fertilizer crisis is spreading a lot faster than they were originally projecting.

We desperately need the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened immediately, but that simply isn’t going to happen.

The Iranians continue to strangle commercial traffic through the Strait, and the U.S. has now “completely” cut off traffic to Iranian ports…

The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports is now fully into effect, “completely” cutting off Tehran’s international sea trade that powers about 90% of its economy, the U.S. Central Command said late Tuesday stateside.

The announcement comes at a time when the White House has been signaling a diplomatic solution to the conflict in the Middle East, as discussions around continuing negotiations with Iran are underway.

“A blockade of Iranian ports has been fully implemented as U.S. forces maintain maritime superiority in the Middle East,” said Brad Cooper, Centcom commander, highlighting that it was achieved under 36 hours of President Donald Trump’s order.

The Trump administration is convinced that this blockade will force the Iranians to give in.

According to U.S. Central Command, the first 48 hours of the blockade have been a resounding success…

But the Iranians are showing no signs of backing down.

On Wednesday, an official with the IRGC warned of severe consequences if the U.S. does not end the blockade…

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announced Wednesday that Tehran would not allow the import or export of goods through the Persian Gulf, the nearby Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea unless the United States lifts the blockade it imposed earlier this week around the Strait of Hormuz.

Ali Abdollahi, commander of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya emergency headquarters, said the measures would be “firm and decisive” steps to protect Iran’s national interests and sovereignty.

According to Abdollahi, if the U.S. continues the blockade Iran has decided that it “will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea”…

In his statement broadcast by Iranian state television, Abdollahi said Iran would move to disrupt shipping routes in the Red Sea and elsewhere if the U.S. continued its blockade, initiated by President Donald Trump.

“The powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea,” the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said.

If Iran is able to successfully stop commercial traffic from traveling through all of those waterways, it will greatly intensify the economic problems that we are starting to witness all over the globe.

In California, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has already almost reached 6 dollars…

Gas prices are soaring across the country, but especially in California. The Golden State average is now nearly $6 per gallon — 40 percent above the national figure. That gap is likely to widen: UC Davis economists estimate that Californians could soon be paying more than $2.50 a gallon above the national average.

In the United Kingdom, officials are bracing for widespread fuel shortages in “two or three weeks”…

Sources told ITV News that the UK is ‘two or three weeks away’ from shortages of diesel and jet fuel, although petrol supplies are healthier.

The Government is said to be facing ‘difficult decisions’ over how to allot fuel supplies, including how to keep ‘ancillary power’ going for NHS hospitals.

If the war with Iran is not resolved quickly, this will only be the tip of the iceberg.

The Iranians are holding the global economy hostage, and they fully realize that this gives them a tremendous amount of leverage.

But there is no way that the U.S. and Israel will ever agree to their demands.

So for now we seem to have an unsolvable problem on our hands, and meanwhile the damage that is being done to the global economy is getting worse with each passing day.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Confirming long-standing rumors of Tim Cook’s replacement, after hours Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO and become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directorsm while John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering whose name has been speculated as the next boss of Apple, will become Apple’s next chief executive officer effective on September 1, 2026. The transition was approved unanimously by the Board of Directors.

Cook will continue in his role as CEO through the summer as he works closely with Ternus on a smooth transition. As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company. I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world,” said Cook.

Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998 and became CEO in 2011, overseeing the introduction of numerous products and services, including new categories like Apple Watch, AirPods, and Apple Vision Pro, and services ranging from iCloud and Apple Pay to Apple TV and Apple Music.

Under Cook, Apple’s market cap grew from $350 billion to $4 trillion, more than 1,000% increase; meanwhile revenue quadrupled, from $108 billion in 2011 to $416 billion in 2025. That’s a more than 2x Price/Sales expansion under Cook, who showed that you don’t need original ideas, you just need cash for buybacks, to be successful as a CEO.

“John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor. He is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future. I could not be more confident in his abilities and his character, and I look forward to working closely with him on this transition and in my new role as executive chairman.”

“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” said Ternus. “Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor. It has been a privilege to help shape the products and experiences that have changed so much of how we interact with the world and with one another. I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the years to come, and I am so happy to know that the most talented people on earth are here at Apple, determined to be part of something bigger than any one of us. I am humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”

Additionally, Arthur Levinson, who has been Apple’s non-executive chairman for the past 15 years, will become its lead independent director on September 1, 2026. Ternus will join the board of directors, also effective September 1, 2026.

“Tim’s unprecedented and outstanding leadership has transformed Apple into the world’s best company. He’s introduced groundbreaking products and services time and again, and his integrity and values are infused into everything Apple does,” said Levinson. “On behalf of the entire board of directors, we are incredibly grateful for his countless contributions to Apple and the world, and we are thrilled he will now be executive chairman. We believe John is the best possible leader to succeed Tim and as he transitions to CEO we know his love of Apple, his leadership, deep technical knowledge, and relentless focus on creating great products will help lead Apple to an extraordinary future.”

“I want to thank Art for the incredible work he has done leading the board of directors for the past 15 years,” said Cook. “I have always found his advice to be invaluable and I appreciate his thoughtfulness and his unwavering dedication to the company. I am grateful he will serve as our lead independent director, and I look forward to working with him in my new role.”

Some more from the press release: 

Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and became a vice president of Hardware Engineering in 2013. He joined the executive team in 2021 as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. Throughout his tenure at Apple, Ternus has overseen hardware engineering work on a variety of groundbreaking products across every category. He was instrumental in the introduction of multiple new product lines, including iPad® and AirPods, as well as many generations of products across iPhone®, Mac®, and Apple Watch.

Ternus’s work on Mac has helped the category become more powerful and more popular globally than at any time in its 40-year history. That includes the recent introduction of MacBook Neo™, an all-new laptop that makes the Mac experience even more accessible to more people around the world. This past fall, his team’s efforts were on full display with the introduction of a redefined iPhone lineup, including the incredibly powerful iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the radically thin and durable iPhone Air™, and the iPhone 17, which has been an incredible upgrade for users. Under his leadership, his team also drove advancements in AirPods to make them the world’s best in-ear headphones, with unprecedented active noise cancellation, as well as the capability to become an all-in-one hearing health system that can serve as over-the-counter hearing aids.

Ternus led much of the company’s focus in areas like reliability and durability, introducing new techniques that have made Apple products remarkably resilient. He has also driven much of Apple’s innovation in materials and hardware design that have reduced the carbon footprint of its products, including the creation of a new, recycled aluminum compound that has been introduced across multiple product lines, the use of 3-D printed titanium in Apple Watch Ultra® 3, and innovations in repairability that have increased the lifespans of several Apple products. 

Prior to Apple, Ternus worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Apple stock dumped on the (widely telegraphed) news, then recovered much of the initial drop.

In August 2013, the Justice Department stated in a press release that it was not going to enforce federal law prohibiting the cannabis use in states that were launching recreational cannabis programs at the time, clearing the way for state-by-state marijuana legalization in the United States.

Approximately 12 years down the line, half of Americans live in states where marijuana is legal and another 105 million have access to medical marijuana.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, this means that 80 percent of U.S. residents now live in a state with some sort of legal weed.

In 2013, it was Colorado and Washington which were gearing up to legalize marijuana after successful ballot initiatives as part of the November 2012 elections.

But the federal government’s policy statement was also relevant for another 18 states and the District of Columbia, which at the time had already legalized medical marijuana.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Data from the Census Bureau shows that between 2012 and 2014, a substantial number of people continued to gain access to medical marijuana as larger states like Massachusetts and Illinois passed measures.

After those years, shifts to recreational weed legislation dominate the statistic with significant legalizations in California (2016), Michigan (2018), New Jersey (2020) and New York (2021), effectively lowering the number of people under medical marijuana legislation only.

Despite this, a total of 15 states have passed medical marijuana ballots or legislation after 2015, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Utah and most recently Nebraska.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Texas last year significantly expanded existing laws and is now counted as a medical marijuana state for the purpose of this chart, significantly pushing up the number of Americans under any kind of legal weed law once more.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“It is one thing for the people (of Iran) to be ruled by globally feared autocrats armed to the teeth, but quite another to be governed by humiliated, now impotent incompetents and buffoons.”

– VDH

Wednesday the US / Iran ceasefire expires. It has been an interesting two weeks. The US used it to negotiate an end to hostilities, resupply our ships in the Arabian Sea, do maintenance on our ships and warplanes, dismantle Iran’s banking conduits, and blockade Hormuz to shut down the regime’s remaining income flow. The Iranians used it to jump up and down and go woo-woo-woo. They also tried to dig out the entrances of their bombed caves and tunnels to unearth whatever’s left of their hidden missile launchers. Our satellites watched everything they did and mapped the coordinates.

Negotiations? So far, not fruitful, if termination of hostilities and surrender of Iran’s uranium is the goal. We’re not even sure the Iranians we’re negotiating with have any real authority to make a deal. Iran’s government at this point is a hash of conflicting factions: the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), which is a large Jihadi mafia that happens to own half of Iran’s economy and controls its advanced missile and drone weaponry; the regular Army (Artesh) which would theoretically defend against a ground invasion, but otherwise just stands by; and the civilian government represented by President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibef — none of whom seem to hold any real decision-making power.

America’s negotiators, led by Veep Vance along with Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner, will land back in Islamabad, Pakistan, today (Monday, April 20).

Our deal is still on the table.

It’s pretty straightforward:

the aforementioned uranium plus a twenty-year halt of nuclear activities with no path toward a weapon;

full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz;

an end to Iranian support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis;

phased-out sanctions and access to frozen assets;

and cessation of hostilities.

Events over the weekend argue that Iran is not finished playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.

They tried to run the Hormuz blockade on Sunday with an incoming cargo ship, the Iranian-flagged M/V Touska. The USS destroyer Spruance, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, blew a hole clean through its engine room and then seized the vessel. Its cargo remains undisclosed for now.

Iran claims that it has closed the Strait of Hormuz. The US said it was already closed via the US blockade (we closed it harder). Iran can’t surreptitiously move any oil out to sell to China or run supplies into the country. Iran will lose about $500-million a day and China will lose the majority of its oil imports. China will jump up and down and go woo-woo-woo over that, while the IRGC will lose its last remaining income stream, meaning no pay for anyone. Let’s see if that prompts an attitude change.

If Iran can’t move its oil, it will soon reach the limit of its oil storage capacity, meaning it will have to shut down its oil wells.

If that happens, the hydrology is such that water invasion of the underground strata will permanently damage the oil fields. Iran is between a rock and a squishy place.

That might be enough to force a deal in the hours ahead.

President Trump has made it clear that the time for Iran jerking-around the US is over.

So then, it’s back to Power Station and Bridge Day (blowing them up).

That would be extremely unfortunate for the ordinary Iranian people.

They are unarmed and helpless to resist the maniacs of the IRGC who would allow Power Station and Bridge Day to happen, who, in effect, don’t really care about the ordinary people of Iran.

However, the regular Iranian army, the Artesh, does have weapons (they are the army and armies are generally armed).

Perhaps they will use them to put the insane jihadi IRGC out of business.

After all, the Artesh’s mission is defense on-the-ground of the Iranian homeland, and just now the biggest threat to Iran is the IRGC.

I guess we’ll have to wait on that and watch.

Meanwhile, interesting developments back on America’s home front: All of a sudden, pieces are moving around the game-board of the ongoing and long-running color revolution that the Trump administration is trying to stop.

By color revolution I mean the Democratic Party and its Deep State cadres’ efforts to transform our country into a matrix of crypto-Marxist racketeering operations — and to evade responsibility for the damage already perpetrated dating back to at least 2016.

The FBI Director, Kash Patel, said explicitly on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning news show that his agency has amassed hard evidence of fraud in the 2020 elections and to expect arrests presently.

(Hmmmm, maybe not so “baseless” after all.)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has prepared to move Colorado political prisoner Tina Peters out of the state lockup and under protection in a federal facility.

It is rumored that the move is due to Ms. Peters’ imminent transformation into a witness for a federal case against Colorado election officials.

AG Blanche has also hired Joseph diGenova, former US Attorney for the DC District, as an assisting counsel to US Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones in the Southern District of Florida, who, as you know, is running a grand jury down there.

Mr. diGenova, 81, has mapped the events and time-lines necessary to make a solid “grand conspiracy” case against the well-known posse of color revolutionists who perpetrated a series of hoaxes, frauds, and malicious prosecutions on our country and on thousands of innocent citizens (including the current occupant of the White House and his lawyers and associates). Like I said, things get interesting-er.

Authored by Jesse Coghlan via CoinTelegraph.com,

Traditional finance giants Charles Schwab and Citadel Securities are both considering entering prediction markets, with each separately weighing up how they wish to get involved in the fast-growing sector.

“I think at some point we likely will have prediction markets,” Rick Wurster, the CEO of the banking and investing titan Schwab, told investors during a call on Thursday.

He added that prediction markets weren’t “of tremendous interest” when he recently asked a group of Schwab clients about them, but it was an area the company would “take a hard look at, and it would be quite straightforward for us to offer.”

Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster speaking to CNBC after the company launched Bitcoin and Ether trading on Thursday. Source: CNBC

Prediction markets such as the popular Kalshi and Polymarket have exploded in use over the past few months, with both platforms seeing a record combined total monthly trading volume of $23.6 billion in March, according to Token Terminal.

However, Kalshi, Polymarket and other prediction market platforms have also caught the ire of some US state regulators, who have accused them in court of offering unlicensed sports betting.

Some federal lawmakers have also vowed to crack down on prediction markets, claiming the platforms weren’t doing enough to stamp out insider trading.

Wurster said Schwab’s potential offering would steer away from allowing bets on areas such as sports, politics and pop culture as it looks to position itself as a partner for building long-term wealth.

“Prediction markets that are not aligned to that are not something that we want to pursue,” he said.

“If you look at the stats on the success of gamblers, they’re not strong, and people generally lose money.”

Citadel “keeping an eye” on prediction markets

Meanwhile, Citadel Securities president Jim Esposito said at a Semafor conference in Washington, DC, on Thursday that the company is “absolutely keeping an eye on developments” in prediction markets. 

Citadel Securities president Jim Esposito speaking at the Semafor World Economy conference on Thursday. Source: YouTube

“We’re not there yet, there’s not that much liquidity,” he added, but said that the market is likely to “ramp and scale,” and it was “certainly possible” that the market-making firm would potentially look to get involved.

Esposito said Citadel was “not looking at sports at the moment at all, I don’t see us entering that market,” but did signal an interest in some event contracts.

He added that Citadel could see its retail and institutional clients use some event contracts as a hedge for risks to their investments, such as contracts for elections, which have been known to move markets.

“That’s going to be some of the biggest risks to investors’ portfolios that they’re going to have to grapple with,” Esposito said. “Having a clean and distinct way to hedge certain risks, I think there’s a good use case and industrial logic to it.”

Confirming the Schrodinger nature of the notorious waterway, the Strait of Hormuz is now just closed even more than before Iran and the US said the vital oil channel had been reopened.

Traffic through the strait on Sunday and Monday was reduced to a trickle following a Saturday surge, after Tehran rejected a continuing US naval blockade and moved to seal the waterway again. The reduced movement underscores just how quickly hopes unraveled that cargoes could once again resume.

On Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the strait was “completely open” for commercial shipping, while US President Donald Trump said Iran was removing sea mines from the waterway. That prompted oil prices to plunge and dozens of tankers to race toward the strait at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. But Iran quickly declared that the passage was closed again as it emerged that the US operation in place since April 13 would not be lifted.

And rejected: the two tankers taking the neutral route, Minerva Evropi and Nissos Keros, have turned around; the Sanmar Herald which appears to be taking the Iran-sanctioned Larak island route is proceeding. https://t.co/aceBI7ki0B pic.twitter.com/gmkM37iA1U

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 18, 2026

The Hormuz crisis flared again over the weekend after the US Navy seized an Iranian vessel, during a turbulent period marked by Iranian forces firing at ships and reimposing controls across the strait. The developments pushed oil and natural gas prices higher after Friday’s big declines, reflecting fears of prolonged supply constraints.

The chaotic, start-stop nature of ship traffic through the strait underscores just how difficult it will be to fully restore oil and gas flows that are vital to the global economy, where energy producers need to have visibility months in advance before restarting production.

According to Bloomberg, just two liquefied petroleum gas carriers and two oil product tankers moved through the strait in both directions on Monday. The previous day, two LPG vessels and a cruise liner sailed out of the gulf, while no inbound transits were seen.

The Gas Harmony, an LPG carrier, went dark inside the gulf on Saturday morning but reappeared off the coast of Oman on Monday, indicating that the vessel transited the strait in the interim. The Liberia-flagged ship is owned and managed by Athens-based Gas Harmony Shipping Ltd., according to maritime database Equasis.

Greek and Iranian LPG ships departed the gulf on Sunday along with the European passenger liner, not listed in the charts. Subsequent observations until Monday afternoon, London time, identified further outbound movement by an Iranian product tanker and a second LPG ship.

At least three Mediterranean Shipping Co. containerships and a MSC cruise liner, along with a handful of other passenger vessels, appeared to have exited the gulf on Saturday, hugging the Omani coastline. That was a deviation from the corridor approved by Iran during the short-lived opening of the waterway. Another MSC containership remains off-grid after it stopped signaling inside the gulf. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Six cruise ships clear Strait of Hormuz during brief reopening

A flotilla of cruise ships stranded in Gulf ports since late February has now cleared the Strait of Hormuz, taking advantage of a brief reopening of the waterway before tighter controls returned.

According to… pic.twitter.com/nvnhG4JrkW

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) April 20, 2026

Diplomatic momentum has wavered after Tehran signaled hesitation regarding a second round of talks in Pakistan, amid the ongoing American blockade of Iranian traffic and the vessel seizure.

The commercial vessels entering Hormuz with active AIS signals during the past day were confined to a narrow northern lane near the Iranian islands of Larak and Qeshm, the route approved by Tehran.

The inbound transits on Monday included an Iranian LPG ship and a fuel tanker.

Pain at the pump might not ease up for American consumers until 2027, according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who said on April 19 that the price of a regular gallon of gas could stay above $3 for the rest of the year.

Wright said a price of $3 per gallon of gas “could happen later this ​year, [but] that might not happen until next year” in an interview that aired on CNN’s ”State of the Union” ​program Sunday.

“But prices have ⁠likely peaked, and they’ll start going down certainly with a resolution of this conflict [in Iran],” Wright predicted while speaking about how the war has impacted energy prices.

As of April 19, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. was $4.04, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

States on the West Coast and the Northeast have the highest prices, according to AAA.

Before the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against the Iranian regime on Feb. 28, the price for a regular gallon of gas in the U.S. was $2.98.

The Energy Information Administration’s short-term energy outlook, published on April 7, predicted the average retail price for a gallon of gasoline would be $4.30 per gallon in April.

The Energy Information Administration – designed as a nonpartisan agency within Wright’s Department of Energy – estimated the retail price for an average gallon of gasoline will be $3.46 in 2027, above the $3 level he predicted on CNN.

As the chart above shows, for pump prices to fall back to $3 a gallon, we would need to see crude oil prices back around $60 a barrel – a long way down given the disruptions from the Iran War are likely to ripple through the supply chain for months.

Finally, The Hill’s White House correspondent, Julia Manchester, reports that President Trump just told her over the phone that he disagrees with Energy Secretary Wright’s assessment that gas prices may not drop until next year. 

“No, I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong,” Trump said, adding that gas prices will drop “as soon as this ends.”

With the Midterms looming ever closer, Trump better hope he’s right and Wright is wrong.

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The Iran shock erased 18% from valuations and fully recovered in two weeks. Investors who panicked missed it all. Here’s what the market lesson is about: risk management, behavior, and what to do with your portfolio right now.

The stock market selloff between February 28 and April 14 produced one of the more instructive market lessons in recent memory. It isn’t because of what the market did, but because of what investors did in response. By April 2nd, the AAII Sentiment Survey showed bearish sentiment at 51.4%, the highest reading in years, well above the historical average of 31%. Put option volume surged, and the financial media ran daily coverage of worst-case oil scenarios, recession projections, and S&P 500 targets as low as 3,800.

However, when you have that combination of bearishness, as we discussed in 5-Consecutive Weekly Declines, markets tend to perform better.

What was surprising was that the S&P 500 recovered completely in two weeks and is now setting all-time highs.

That sequence is not a reason to relax, but it is a valuable market lesson. It is also a good reason to examine what happened to investors who panicked, why the pattern repeats with such regularity, and, most importantly, what a well-constructed portfolio actually looks like when the next stock market selloff arrives. Because it will arrive. The only uncertainty is the catalyst.

The Drill & The Failure

Every major market shock is a test, a market lesson to be learned from. Not a test of whether your thesis was right, or whether you picked the right stocks. A test of whether your portfolio was built to hold under pressure, and whether your instincts are an asset or a liability when it counts.

The Iran conflict delivered a real economic shock. U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iran’s nuclear facilities. Tehran retaliated against Gulf energy infrastructure and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply flows daily, ground to a halt. Brent crude surged from $61 at year-end to over $114 a barrel, and that spike raised inflation expectations, hammered small caps, and sent Asian equity markets into a tailspin as energy costs threatened to consume the profit margins underpinning the region’s AI and manufacturing boom.

Then, at what seemed to be the darkest moment, the market repriced all of that in two weeks. Valuations declined roughly 18% as investors adjusted for the expected impact of higher oil prices on earnings and consumer spending. That repricing was rational, but the panic layered on top of it was not. In the middle of the selloff, predictions of a structural bear market were everywhere, but none of them materialized.

That pattern of maximum fear at the exact moment prices are lowest, followed by regret as they recover, is a market lesson that repeats itself regularly. The investors who liquidated near the recent lows, as sentiment turned negative, locked in losses. But two weeks later, they face an even more difficult decision: do I reenter at prices 10% higher than the ones I sold at? Most don’t. That gap between market returns and the average investor’s actual earnings is the most expensive line item in the typical portfolio.

What Risk Is, And Isn’t

The word “risk” gets used so loosely in financial media that it has lost most of its meaning. A falling stock price isn’t the definition of “risk.” Neither is a scary headline. Volatility isn’t risk either; it’s the price of admission for participating in markets over time.

As I’ve said previously, if you aren’t willing to watch your portfolio decline 10% to 15% without doing something rash, you aren’t really an investor; you are a speculator who happens to be holding stocks.

Risk, defined precisely, is the probability of a permanent impairment of capital. Not temporary losses, or a 10% drawdown that reverses in two weeks. Risk is the permanent impairment of capital, resulting in significantly diminished future outcomes. The distinction is enormous, separating investors who compound wealth over decades from those who don’t.

When the S&P 500 dropped during the Iran shock, the vast majority of that decline reflected a temporary repricing of earnings expectations under elevated oil prices. The underlying companies, their cash flows, their competitive advantages, and their earnings power didn’t change materially. The price changed, but the value didn’t. Investors who sold during that repricing didn’t escape risk; they converted a temporary paper loss into a realized one and then forfeited the recovery.

The market lesson is in the chart. Fear peaked at the moment prices were most attractive. By the time the market had recovered and all-time highs were being printed, fear had nearly returned to historical norms. The investors who acted on that peak in fear did exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. The investors who recognized it as a contrarian signal, or who simply had the discipline to do nothing, participated in the full recovery.

The Behavior Gap: The Most Expensive Cost

Dalbar Inc. has published an annual study for over 30 years, measuring the difference between the return delivered by the stock market and the return actually earned by the average equity investor. The gap, which Dalbar calls the “behavior gap,” has consistently shown that the average investor earns two to three percentage points less per year than the indices they’re invested in. That shortfall isn’t explained by fees or bad stock selection. It’s explained entirely by timing decisions: buying after rallies and selling during selloffs.

Over 30 years, a two-percentage-point annual shortfall compounds into a staggering wealth gap. A $500,000 portfolio growing at 8% a year becomes roughly $5 million. The same portfolio growing at 6%, because the investor panicked during selloffs and missed recoveries, becomes roughly $2.9 million. That $2.1 million gap is the price of panic. And the investor who sold near the April 2nd sentiment extreme has already paid a portion of it.

After every major market shock, the “this time is different” argument gains traction. The Iran conflict gave that argument real support. It was a genuine exogenous shock with measurable economic consequences, not a technical correction or manufactured volatility. But the historical record on recovery from sharp, shock-driven selloffs is remarkably consistent, and favors the patient investor over the reactive one.

Since 1950, there have been 20 instances in which the S&P 500 rose more than 10% in a 10-day period, the kind of snapback recovery we saw in April. Over the following 12 months, the index was higher in 17 of those 20 cases, with an average gain of 19%. Nasdaq win streaks of comparable magnitude resolved higher 100% of the time over 12 months, with average gains near 26%. Those numbers don’t guarantee another selloff isn’t coming. That means the investors best positioned to capture those forward returns are the ones who stayed disciplined through the downturn. They rebalanced into weakness, and held enough cash to redeploy rather than liquidate.

Consider 2022. The Fed’s tightening cycle produced a 9-month bear market that erased ~25% from the S&P 500. The investors who sold in October 2022, when sentiment was just as dark as it was in early April 2026, missed a recovery that added nearly 60% over the next two years. The pattern repeats because human psychology repeats. The catalyst changes. The behavior doesn’t.

Build a Shock-Resistant Portfolio

Building a portfolio that survives market selloffs without requiring heroic decision-making isn’t complicated. It’s only unpopular because it involves accepting modest underperformance during the easy, low-volatility periods in exchange for not being the person who liquidates at the bottom during the hard ones.

The UBS analysis of the Iran shock made a point worth internalizing. The assets that acted as refuges during 2025’s tariff-driven selloff, such as gold, the Japanese yen, and Treasuries, provided meaningfully less protection this year. The assets that performed well in 2026, particularly the trade-weighted dollar, did little to offset losses during last year’s episode. In other words, building a portfolio to hedge against the last crisis is a losing strategy. The next one will look different.

The more durable approach focuses not on predicting which hedge will work, but on maintaining portfolio construction that allows you to hold through volatility without being forced to sell. That means genuine diversification across asset classes and geographies. It means a real cash buffer that functions as optionality. It also means rebalancing mechanically rather than emotionally, adding exposure when prices are low and trimming when they’ve run ahead of value.

The Iran conflict reframed a question many investors had avoided asking: Were they genuinely diversified? Investors with heavy commodity-linked exposure looked prescient during the decline. But that quickly fell out of favor as megacap technology stocks took center stage during the recovery. Having diversification means you had positions that performed during both the decline and the rally. Concentrated, one-sided portfolios rarely perform well over the long term.

Here are seven portfolio actions to think about today.

The six weeks between late February and mid-April gave every investor a real-world market lesson. That lesson was in both portfolio construction and behavioral discipline. It wasn’t about Iran, oil prices, or the Strait of Hormuz. The lesson was whether your portfolio was built to withstand a genuine shock. And whether you know the difference between a temporary price decline and a permanent impairment of value.

Those who held, rebalanced, and redeployed cash came out ahead. Those who sold near the lows are now deciding what to do with prices ~10% higher. Most won’t. That’s the behavior gap in real time, and it compounds across every market cycle over an investing lifetime.

After 30 years of watching this pattern repeat, I can tell you with confidence that no amount of market forecasting substitutes for a sound process. The S&P 500 is trading at roughly 20 times forward earnings, the ten-year Treasury yield is near 4.3%, and the geopolitical situation is improving, or at least markets are pricing it that way. What comes next is unknowable. What you do with your portfolio in the meantime is entirely within your control.

That’s always been the real market lesson. The Iran shock just delivered it again, free of charge and clearly labeled.

What you do with it is up to you.

Two months after the Department of War declared Anthropic a “supply chain risk” and moved to several all ties with the AI wunderkind, the National Security Agency (NSA), which falls under DoW, is using it according to Axios. 

According to the report, the nation’s top surveillance agency is using Mythos Preview – Anthropic’s most powerful model to date. It is unclear how the NSA is currently using Mythos, however other organizations are using it primarily to scan their own environments for exploitable security vulnerabilities. The company has restricted access to Mythos to around 40 organizations – as the company says the model’s offensive cyber capabilities are too dangerous for wider release. Axios notes further;

Anthropic only announced 12 of those organizations. One source said the NSA was among the unnamed agencies with access.
 
The NSA’s counterparts in the U.K. have said they have access to the model through the country’s AI Security Institute.

On Friday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss deploying Mythos within the government, as well as Anthropic’s wider plans and security practices. 

As we noted late last week, the White House has directed federal agencies to begin using Mythos. So the Pentagon, er, Department of War, has egg (or an egg-like substance) on their face – after Anthropic demanded oversight over its use in military operations and domestic surveillance.

From “Supply-Chain Risk” to Strategic Asset

The government’s relationship with Anthropic had been icy for months. As we noted in February, the Pentagon threatened to blacklist the company as a “supply-chain risk” after Anthropic refused to strip certain ethical guardrails from its models for military use. That standoff escalated in March when Anthropic sued the Pentagon over the designation, as detailed in ZeroHedge’s coverage of the lawsuit.

That said, the Pentagon’s “supply-chain risk” label was always narrow in scope: it was a DoD-specific action triggered by the company’s refusal to remove certain ethical guardrails from its models for unrestricted military and offensive-use applications. That designation threatened to block Anthropic technology from defense contracts and classified work, and it led directly to Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Pentagon.

Today’s OMB memo changes almost nothing on paper for that designation. The Pentagon has not withdrawn it, the lawsuit is still active, and DoD contractors remain restricted from using Claude models (including Mythos) in offensive or surveillance contexts.

Just days ago, the U.S. Treasury was rushing to gain access to Mythos after internal warnings that the model could “hack every major system.” Senior Treasury and Federal Reserve officials had summoned CEOs of the nation’s largest banks to Washington, warning them that the financial system’s exposure to AI-powered attacks had become existential. Behind closed doors, federal agencies – including the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation – had already begun quiet red-teaming of Mythos. Anthropic co-founder and president Daniela Amodei confirmed the company had briefed the administration early, telling reporters simply: “The government has to know about this stuff.”