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Good morning. This is a big show. Here’s what’s on deck… Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC Navy announced that all traffic is prohibited and turned back three container ships this morning. At the same time, explosions were reported at U.S. military bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. Drones hit Kuwait’s Shuwaikh Port. Explosions in Tehran, Isfahan, and Kashan. A Revolutionary Guard headquarters was bombed. The Pentagon has fired 850+ Tomahawk missiles in four weeks and is reportedly worried about supplies. Trump extended the Iran deadline to April 6. He says talks are going very well, and Iran asked for the pause. Mediators say Iran never requested it. CNN reports the administration is weighing options to seize Kharg Island. Semafor notes Trump has never ordered large-footprint military assets without actually using them. Ten days. China launched two trade probes against the U.S. this morning. One on trade practices, one on green products. Six-month timeline. European equities and U.S. futures reversed immediately. China is opening a second front while the U.S. is distracted by Iran. After the Morning Brrr, we’ll shift over to Money Printer Pro — breakout stocks, breakdown names, and a few ideas for today. Full transcript… here… We are going to start diving right into this. Since we’re using Substack for our recording this morning, we’re all about about it. We’ll figure it out. So today, Hormuz. U.S. bases have been hit. China is probing the U.S. on a couple of things. Real quick, what do you need to watch this morning? Three key things. Number one, University of Michigan sentiment today at 10 o’clock. That tells us how American consumers are feeling. The preliminary reading was 57.5, the lowest of 2026. The final number for the month comes in today. Equity fund inflows came on de-escalation hopes earlier this week. If sentiment craters, those flows reverse. Number two, we’ve got a jobs report coming out next week. We’re expecting 148,000 new jobs. February saw a negative move, minus 92,000. If March misses too, that’s back-to-back payroll losses for the first time since 2020. It would be a significant game-changer for the economy. Number three, April 6th is now the deadline — 10 days out. The new deadline on Iran energy strikes. If these talks collapse, the next escalation is ground troops and Kharg Island. Oil could go as high as $130, but as we’ve said, we’ve been here for a while. Iran has shut down the Strait once again. U.S. bases have been under attack. The IRGC Navy has turned three ships away. All traffic is now prohibited. And this is where it starts to get real again. Explosions at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. Explosions in Tehran, Isfahan, and Kashan. China launching two probes against U.S. trade practices and green products. We’ll talk about this. Global equities are now under pressure. Bank of America saying $28 billion has left U.S. equities, $35 billion out of cash, $6.8 billion out of gold. The dollar broke 100. U.S. Treasuries are at fresh contract lows. Very, very important. All right, so the S&P 500 starts the day under 5,500. We were just near all-time highs. I don’t know if you knew that, but it seems like — did we get this right? Did our signal go negative on January 28th and a real hard negative move around March 3rd? Yeah. So we have to pay attention to that. We have to recognize that cash is a position. Crude is at $97 WTI. Brent hitting $110. Gold at $4,400. Silver at $68. Where are we feeling lucky around there? Probably around that $65 level is where I’m willing to go back in some more. Bitcoin — that 3% drop is telling us right now that liquidity remains a problem in the financial markets. The dollar rising against Bitcoin is not good news. If you’ve followed us in the morning, you know that a rising dollar impacts collateral quality. It impacts virtually everything in the global commodity space. So once again, we have to be concerned about this. That DXY level at 100 is very critical to watch. Again, the Strait shutdown, explosions at the bases. 850 Tomahawk missiles were fired in four weeks. The Washington Post reporting that the Pentagon is concerned about supplies. Trump is still Trumping — talks going very well, extending the deadline out to the 6th, saying that Iran asked for a pause, saying that in a certain sense we’ve already won. Well, let’s look at reality. Not what people say, but what’s actually happening on the ground. Three ships turned back, multiple attacks on U.S. bases. Mediators saying that Iran did not request a pause. 10,000 more troops are now being considered. CNN saying that the seizure of Kharg Island is on the table. But I will stress that when you are playing against an irrational actor, as Iran is in the concept of wargaming, they might attack their own island. We have to be cognizant of the fact that they would be willing to potentially destroy their own infrastructure. These are very, very nihilistic individuals sitting across from the table. Trump has never ordered a large footprint of military assets without actually using them. The key story remains Brent. Once again, we went through the momentum stocks yesterday. I’m going to be on StockTwits today with Michelle Steele talking about what stocks are in breakout mode versus breakdown mode. Stocks breaking out right now at the top of the list: APA Corporation — they changed the name from Apache. I don’t know why, because it was such a cool name. And then Devon Energy, which I used to always pronounce wrong. DVN, the ticker. They’re the top two stocks on our conviction level. So if you’re looking to try to trade rising oil prices, it’s going to be in those purebred upstream oil and gas names. WTI at $97, Brent at $111. It is a reminder that pipeline stocks are still good. We talked about this yesterday. Energy Transfer, EPD, MPLX. Natural gas currently sitting above $3, an 85% increase. Even the worst names in that space are up. Kosmos Energy — we saw a significant insider buy at $2, trading around $2.90 now. The reality is that this is the biggest energy shock in history. You’re living through it right now. The UAE is pushing for an international force to reopen Hormuz, and I think you’re going to start to see a lot more panic in the Gulf states because these economies are highly leveraged, financialized economies on the back of commodities. We have to take stock of the fact that this region is deeply concerned about their real estate markets, their financial markets, and everything that comes with it. Iran’s saying that passage control is their legal right. Gold holding, silver steady. A lot of liquidation it seemed yesterday. Once again, we’re seeing selling for the purposes of purchasing oil. Gold at $4,400, silver at $68. This is a tough one. It’s very difficult after the wave of inflationary moves that we saw. We saw a huge level of investment in gold and silver on the back of the 2024 call that we made — the Hedge of Tomorrow report. Gold was at $2,200 when we recommended it. Silver was at $25. So I’m happy with these moves that have transpired. These are doubling-your-money returns. But the market is concerned because we went as high as $5,500 on gold and silver hit $120. So the psychology is that this is selling off, this is a fade. I think a rational price for silver is in the $60 to $65 level. I’m going to target those royalty companies, companies like Wheaton, and anchor into these names. Gold’s difficult. I already have a very large physical position in gold, and I anchor about 5% to 10% of my net worth in gold and silver. So I’m not going to increase my physical amount because I was already overweighted. It’s pulling back now and actually kind of coming into line. I want you to think about that and consider that you should not be speculating and trying to increase your exposure to gold and silver to say 20%. Five to ten percent is a rational figure. Platinum is at $1,800. Palladium at $1,387. I think palladium should be a lot higher. That’s just me. Copper at $5.46. And once again, we have to pay attention to what the People’s Bank of China is doing right now. If they increase their monetary exposure, if they continue to engage in stimulus, that should be bullish for copper. This is the interesting casualty of the war, and it’s helium. No helium, no chips. Every war has a casualty. This is the one that has slipped off the back page and is now starting to become a front page story. Helium is a critical component to chipmaking — it’s for cooling, leak detection, and precision manufacturing. You cannot make semiconductors without helium. Qatar produces nearly a third of the global supply — 63 million cubic feet in 2025 — and that pipeline has been disrupted. Companies are already slowing their output on the semiconductor side. You should be looking at U.S.-based producers engaged in this. I don’t know if Total Helium is still around. Is that still a thing? TTLHF, now Altura Energy. It’s at 15 cents. No thank you. Look at Linde, L-I-N-D-E. Linde’s stock is currently at $500 and rolling hard. I like to see that. Solid momentum on this stock, now up about 25% since mid-December. LIN is the ticker. Interesting momentum stock and something I might actually be interested in selling put spreads on down at the $450 level. Companies are already slowing output. If the shortage persists, production cuts ripple through electronics, autos, smartphones. And you know what? Birthday clowns really get hit hard on this. I mean, this is brutal. What are they going to do? How are you going to make those crazy balloon animals? You can’t handle that. The reality is that helium is not really a balloon commodity. It is heavily, heavily used in industry. But the more clowns that we put out of business, the better off I’m going to sleep at night. I am terrified of them. VAT, the Swiss semiconductor firm, says the conflict is already affecting production. They note this is the kind of second-order effect that doesn’t show up until it’s too late. So once again, disruption in Qatari gas, helium supply drops, chip production slows, and as a result, everything downstream — because helium is a byproduct of natural gas production — slows down. Cars, phones, servers, AI infrastructure, all of it needs chips. In a slowing liquidity environment, the focus on earnings is going to be more important than ever. The focus on margins is going to be more important than ever. Auto companies, phone companies — but I will point something out. Why do cars have so many semiconductors in them? I want to get back to those 1980s, 1990s cars that have nothing in them. Why does my headrest have seven semiconductors in it? Do we need it? I don’t know. But the point is, phones are going to be disrupted, servers will be disrupted, AI infrastructure will be disrupted. I’m not worried about the cars. I’m worried about the phones and the servers. China launching trade probes against the United States, investigating U.S. trade measures that restrict tech exports and investment. MOFCOM saying that these measures are disrupting the global supply chain. Six-month timeline that can be extended. This is China opening a second front while the U.S. is distracted by Iran. And I remind you that a lot of this goes back to the capital debate and wars between the United States and China. Zoltan Pozsar saying that at the end of the day, this Iranian energy story is a direct hit at China. We’ve already taken oil away from them in Venezuela. How does the Middle East disrupt them? Well, now China’s turning around and throwing trade probes at the U.S., which once again creates all types of ripple effects across the global economy. China’s commerce minister met with U.S. trade representatives as well. The probes were still launched. The timing is not accidental. The U.S. has fired 850 Tomahawks and the Pentagon is worried about supplies. And the other thing to keep in mind: China is choking us on rare earth metals. We’re trying to do the same to them on energy. European equities reversed pre-cash gains on the news. U.S. futures went from green to red. Global risk tone has shifted immediately, investigating whether we are hindering trade in green products, targeting Section 301 tariffs and clean energy restrictions. This will have consequences. Everybody cares about the Federal Reserve. Everybody becomes an expert in Fed policy when the Fed is in the wake of their meeting. Rate cut expectations are gone now. If you go over to CME Group and look at the FedWatch tool, the odds of a rate cut for April are zero. The odds of a rate hike in April are at 6.2%. Go out to December and the rate cut expectations are effectively gutted. The odds that we are at 4.25% are on the board at 1.1%, and at 4.5% around 9.2%. This is something that the United States economy cannot afford. I’m going to stress this because if the Fed funds rate goes up, SOFR is going to be impacted. That’s going to impact collateral quality. That’s going to impact the repo markets. That’s going to tighten conditions on global equity markets. The idea here is the longer inflation remains above 2%, the greater the risk it becomes entrenched. That’s from Barr. I’m going to remind you, I consider all the rate cut stuff to be theater. I consider a lot of the inflation focus and the jobs market stuff to be theater. At the end of the day, the focus should be on SOFR. It is not. So we focus on the Fed funds rate, which really at the end of the day funds some sort of very bizarre carry trade internationally through housing banks. That said, Cook saying that inflation risk is now greater as a result of the war. Well, of course, energy is influencing that. And it’s not just going to be the price of oil. It’s also going to be the price of natural gas. We have the AI trade as well, the impact of AI on electricity, and the rising cost of natural gas. This is a problem, and you can’t print more oil. You can’t print more natural gas. Sustained energy prices could worsen the inflation and spending outlook, says Jefferson. I think if you can say a sentence like that, I should be in the Fed because I could have said that. That doesn’t help anything. UBS now expects the ECB to hike twice. Europe is in trouble if they are going to start hiking rates. Their shadow banking system is going to see some stress. They have private credit issues as well. Remember, a lot of debt has to be refinanced this year. Doing so at higher interest rates is only going to create more pressure on the global financial system, but also because liquidity is what moves markets according to CrossBorder Capital. And of course, what Stanley Druckenmiller says — capital moves equities. The reality is, the higher these rates go, we are looking more and more like a 2022 scenario where we see a period of lower highs, lower lows, until something breaks and then the Federal Reserve and other central banks may have to step in. I remind you, and I talked about this when I was with StockTwits yesterday, go back and look at 2022. At one point, the Bank of England was going to raise interest rates. And then five days later, they were printing money. That is where we sit right now. But the reality is for right now, the global tightening cycle is back. And this is going to have a very significant impact on equities over the next few months. The Fed can’t cut because oil is pushing inflation higher. They can’t hike because the economy is slowing. They are frozen in place. And right now, as I said in that Bank for International Settlements conversation the other day, the United States central bank is talking to people. Other central banks around the globe are not. They are not making predictions because they don’t want to be wrong, because if they’re wrong, they’re worried that their credibility is undermined. Now, 25 basis points is not necessarily a quote-unquote hike, but you’re seeing this starting to be priced in, and this is consequential for the global economy. Bank of America is saying $29 billion has flowed out of stocks. If you are following us over here at Me and the Money Printer, if you’re following Money Printer Pro, you don’t need to see these numbers. We’ve already shown that with the fact that our signal went negative on January 28th. And it has gotten worse. The compounding impact of capital out of the markets has accelerated. And we have been on top of this because we’re not putting this headline out now. We’ve been holding this headline for about seven weeks. The dollar is knocking on 100. The higher the dollar goes, the more problems we have. Mo’ money, mo’ problems, right? 100 is the line in the sand. I hope I made you cringe when I said that. U.S. dollar against the euro — euros down, British pounds down. The line in the sand is that 160 level on Japan. We hit that 160 level on the yen, we have to start having another conversation about pressure on their banking system and their insurance industry. Once again, all of these issues are compounding at the same time — private credit, Japan, dollar reserves, oil. The United States Federal Reserve is stuck in a box right now, and Bitcoin is telling us that there is an issue because Bitcoin is a liquidity proxy at this moment. The short dollar positions of 2026 were caught offsides, says Standard Chartered. We’re seeing strength in the UUP right now. That line at 100 is going to be very critical. Polymarket saying there is a 38% chance of no cuts in 2026. I’m going higher. I’m going above that. My expectation is that rates could go up and they still print money this year. That is kind of how the Bank of England handled their crisis a couple of years ago. Oil inflation has killed the easing cycle. Shorts are being squeezed. JP Morgan turned bullish for the first time of the year on the dollar. Goldman and Deutsche Bank came in bearish and they were wrong. Deutsche Bank warning that the war is testing the dollar’s role in global oil trade, that China is pushing yuan settlement. Long-term question, not a short-term one. The reality is that this is all part of the bigger narrative of the U.S. dollar against the yuan. I highly encourage you to read the book Capital Wars for a better understanding of what is transpiring, because everything laid out in that book has really provided us a solid roadmap for where we sit over the next 10 to 15 years. Fifth week in a row we’re likely to lose. Q1 ends today. I’ll miss you, Q1. You were so great. The Iran war has wiped $7 trillion in global stocks. Oil up 70% year-to-date. Gas up 85% year-to-date. Gold down 16% from highs this month. Obviously 20% going back to that January 28th period when we had the negative momentum event. Two days later, big selloff, because of a lot of different reasons. But as I laid out in that BIS report, at the end of the day, a lot of leverage was unwound very, very quickly. Interest rates are heading up, not down. Not good. And the AI trade in question on energy costs. Once again, if you are not a member of Money Printer Pro, I don’t know what you’re doing. We make it as easy as we possibly can for you. After the Morning Burr, we shift to Money Printer Pro. I go through the stocks that are breaking out, breaking down. We gave a couple of ideas worth watching today. Also a fantastic insider buy in the upstream oil and gas space today. Talking about ways to trade that at our Insider Buying Report, but also at Money Printer Pro today. If you don’t have access to this, just do it for a month so you can see the tools you get access to. We give access to our specific reading. You can check that out at any time of the day. It is completely accessible. We have our breakout and breakdown stocks on that list. And we have a deep dive tool where you just type in any ticker that you’re trading and you can see where this stock is at any given moment in a momentum cycle. So if you are a trader, if you’re buying a stock, if you’re trying to ride something higher because somebody made a recommendation or you feel bullish about something, type it in and see if the stock is in breakout mode. Because if it’s in breakdown mode, I got bad news for you. The math is against you. So if you’re shorting in this market, great tool as well. Make it accessible. And again, you don’t have to sign up for a year. Sign up for a month. Check it out. Let me know what you think. And we’ll go from there. That is the end of our show right now. I thought it was fantastic. I think my mother is going to be very, very proud. And I hope that everybody has a great trading day. Thank you all so much for taking the time to join me on a day like today. I know that you could be doing so many other things, but I greatly appreciate your time as always. I’m Garrett Baldwin from Me and the Money Printer. Also check out Postcards from the Edge of the World. Have a great day, everybody. About Me and the Money Printer Me and the Money Printer is a daily publication covering the financial markets through three critical equations. We track liquidity (money in the financial system), momentum (where money is moving in the system), and insider buying (where Smart Money at companies is moving their money). Combining these elements with a deep understanding of central banking and how the global system works has allowed us to navigate financial cycles and boost our probability of success as investors and traders. This insight is based on roughly 17 years of intensive academic work at four universities, extensive collaboration with market experts, and the joy of trial and error in research. You can take a free look at our worldview and thesis right here. Disclaimer Nothing in this email should be considered personalized financial advice. While we may answer your general customer questions, we are not licensed under securities laws to guide your investment situation. Do not consider any communication between you and Florida Republic employees as financial advice. The communication in this letter is for information and educational purposes unless otherwise strictly worded as a recommendation. Model portfolios are tracked to showcase a variety of academic, fundamental, and technical tools, and insight is provided to help readers gain knowledge and experience. Readers should not trade if they cannot handle a loss and should not trade more than they can afford to lose. There are large amounts of risk in the equity markets. Consider consulting with a professional before making decisions with your money.
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