Trump says war will end "very soon" and that oil prices will drop below $100/bbl after surging Sunday...oh wait, that was March 9th https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/09/trump-iran-war-end.html My bear thesis for the US equities markets has been and will continue to be based on one primary thing that has been consistently and continuously neglected in western reporting and in the news-driven trading cycle: Iran controls whether the Strait of Hormuz opens, and Iran will not open the Strait of Hormuz without concrete security guarantees from the US. Trump can conduct air strikes. Trump can declare an imminent end to the War in "a few weeks", or even declare mission accomplished on social media. Trump can say oil prices are coming down. Trump can even withdraw the military. None of these are going to incentivize Iran to open the Strait while the US militarily funds Israel, or has bases in the Middle East, and is capable of striking Iran at any minute (including during negotiations). Iran is exercising a strategy of Deterrence, both to defend itself against a US takeover now, and to disincentivize military action by the US and/or Israel in the future. The only alternative to the US providing security guarantees to Iran is a protracted decade-long ground war turning into an Iraq and Afghanistan style counterinsurgency that the U.S. is likely to lose. To add to my thesis, France estimates 30-40% of Gulf oil infrastructure has been damaged or permanently destroyed: https://www.france24.com/en/france-confirms-oil-crisis-says-30-40-gulf-energy-infrastructure-destroyed This means if Hormuz is fully opened tomorrow, we have already moved from a logistics disruption to a long term supply loss. Not to mention the time it will take for functioning refineries to restart, for ships to be willing to traverse Hormuz again, for insurance companies to provide insurance to vessels, and for logistics flows to be fully restored. All of that is already months away. Supply side oil shocks nearly always lead to recessions, and nearly always lead to greater than 20% drawdowns in the S&P. At a certain point, people have to withdraw savings to pay their mortgages, buy groceries, and afford the other necessities of life. One of the retorts I keep hearing is that doomers were just as doomery during Liberation Day. To that, I refer to my original thesis. On LD, Trump could TACO. Again, here, it is fully in Iran's control to keep Hormuz shut. All they need are a few drones (that can, by the way, be launched from as deep as 1,000 miles inland), and ships won't cross. I also hear people talk about COVID, and to that I ask: How is the US money printing machine that printed the economy out of COVID going to print oil? The best parallel is when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. There, we were looking at a 3% loss of supply, and equities markets slid till the end of the year. I will eventually rebuy, and I am sure I will get a rebuy price lower than my exit price (even if ...