Welcome to Market Madness!

Trump is using the Iran war to manipulate financial markets on an epic scale.

What do you have in your 2026 Market Madness bracket? A US attack on Iran’s energy grid? More exploding natural gas plants in the Middle East? US Marines on the ground in Iran? A sunk aircraft carrier or other US Navy ship? Oil at $150? Or maybe an end to the war and oil back to $70?

All of these possibilities and many others seem to be in play as President Donald Trump’s manic war strategy careens from one extreme to another. Investors are desperately trying to trade the Iran war Trump started on February 28, buying when Trump suggests the war might end soon, and selling when hostilities worsen. But these gigantic all-or-nothing trades, all pegged to one megalomaniac’s impulses, have plunged financial markets into a state of temporary insanity.

The latest Trump-driven gyration is a March 23 plunge in oil prices and surge in stock values, based on one de-escalatory social-media post. But that was nothing more than Trump backing down from his own escalatory threat of two days earlier.

[See 7 ways Iran can stop oil shipments]

Let’s examine the timing. On Saturday, March 21 at 7:44 pm, Trump said on social media that the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it didn’t allow all ships safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. So his deadline would have been 7:44 pm on Monday, March 23.