March 3rd Market Overview

Happy Tuesday


Markets took a beating early before recovering some ground.

The Iran war kept escalating until Trump promised Navy escorts through the Strait of Hormuz, which pulled stocks off their lows. I'm watching the US Dollar right now, it caught a massive bid today. That's where investors hide when they actually panic.

Let’s dig in...

Today's Big Picture

The Strait Is Closed

Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz today officially. Tanker traffic through the chokepoint that moves 20 percent of the world's oil has stopped completely. Brent briefly hit $85 before pulling back after Trump promised Navy escorts for commercial tankers through the region. Diesel futures posted their steepest single-day move since the first Gulf War.

Safe Havens Shift 

You can tell a lot about a market by what people buy when they get scared. Today, nobody wanted gold or silver. They dumped both hard. Everyone just wanted US Dollars. That tells me we're looking at a pure liquidity grab, not a long-term inflation hedge. Gold fell around 4% while the dollar caught its biggest bid in months…. Silver down around 8% today.

Momentum Trades Unwind 

The rotation trade died today. Investors had been piling into small caps, memory chips, and international markets for months betting that gains would broaden out. All of that stopped the second this conflict escalated. South Korea's Kospi posted its worst day in 19 months. The European Stoxx 600, DAX, and FTSE 100 all hit their biggest drops since the April tariff selloff.

Market Overview

Index Performance

Stock Spotlight

Target $TGT ( ▲ 6.72% )  
reported better holiday earnings than Wall Street expected. Adjusted $2.44 per share versus the $2.16 consensus. Foot traffic finally turned positive in January, giving them a credible path back to growth this year.

Best Buy $BBY ( ▲ 7.54% )  
made more money despite selling less gear. Adjusted earnings of $2.61 per share beat the $2.46 estimate. CEO Corie Barry said internal data shows their market share held flat in a tough environment for consumer electronics.

MongoDB $MDB ( ▼ 22.07% )  
gave a weak outlook for the year and lost two top sales executives on the same day. Baird downgraded on concerns that AI is making traditional database models obsolete. Stock is now down more than 40 percent in 2026.

Pinterest $PINS ( ▲ 8.15% )  
secured a billion-dollar investment from Elliott Management to fund a $3.5 billion share buyback program.

Big Name Updates

Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 1.32% )  
was the only Magnificent 7 stock to survive the broad selloff. When the world feels unstable, investors park money in companies sitting on massive cash piles.

Blackstone $BX ( ▼ 3.41% )  
watched a record $1.7 billion in net outflows walk out the door of its $82 billion flagship private credit fund. Withdrawal requests blew past the threshold that lets the firm gate redemptions. Shares are now nearly half off their 2024 high.

Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 0.01% )  
warned of extended cloud outages after drone strikes hit three of its data centers in the Middle East. Two UAE facilities took direct hits and a third in Bahrain caught damage from a nearby strike.

Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 2.66% )  
led the Mag 7 lower. The brief tech recovery we saw yesterday completely evaporated as the reality of a longer conflict set in. Nvidia $NVDA and Alphabet $GOOG followed close behind.

Other Notable Company News

Ziff Davis $ZD ( ▲ 48.38% )  
agreed to sell its connectivity division to Accenture for $1.2 billion in cash.

Robinhood $HOOD ( ▼ 3.44% )  
caught a downgrade from the market as crypto trading volumes dried up.

Credo Technology $CRDO ( ▼ 14.92% )  
dropped on fears that data centers are swapping copper cables for optical links. Bank of America kept a buy rating and sees nearly 40 percent upside.

Norwegian Cruise Line $NCLH ( ▼ 3.99% )  
extended Monday's steep losses as fuel costs and route disruptions stack up.

Today’s Sponsor

Elon Musk Already Made Wealthy

Years ago, I got into a Tesla-heavy fund before anyone believed in him. That single bet turned into nearly a seven-figure position in less than a decade.

Now I'm betting on Elon again - with SpaceX.

Bloomberg is calling it "the biggest listing of ALL TIME." A $1.5 TRILLION valuation. A "millionaire-maker" event!

I believe Elon will announce the IPO on March 26, 2026. And I have an "access code" that lets you get a stake in before it happens.

Click Here to See How to Secure Your "SpaceX Access Code"

Sector Watch

Bond Market

Treasurys took a hit this morning as higher oil prices woke up the inflation trade. The ten-year yield touched 4.1 percent before backing off this afternoon alongside oil. Rate cut expectations got crushed. Odds of two or more cuts this year fell from nearly 80 percent on Friday to 57 percent today. Friday's jobs report could add more pressure here.

Policy Watch

Middle East Escalation 

The US embassy in Riyadh was hit by drones as Iran expanded its attacks on Saudi Arabia. The State Department ordered evacuations from Bahrain, Iraq, and Jordan. Hezbollah launched missiles and drones at Tel Aviv. Concerns are growing about how long Gulf states can sustain their air defenses against the barrage. US military leaders said more forces are headed to the region but declined to say how long the mission would last.

Energy Fallout

• Gas prices rose 11 cents overnight to $3.11 per gallon nationally. AAA expects another 10 to 30 cents per gallon over the next week.

• QatarEnergy suspended LNG production after attacks on its facilities. Qatar is the world's second-largest LNG exporter. European gas futures roughly doubled from pre-conflict levels before pulling back.

• Goldman Sachs predicted AI will eventually displace 11 million US jobs, about 6 percent of the workforce.

International 

Trump threatened to cut off all trade with Spain after Madrid denied US base access for the Iran strikes. German Chancellor Merz called the conflict damaging to European economies. The IMF said it's too early to judge the full economic impact.

What to Watch

Broadcom Earnings (tomorrow after bell close)
The chipmaker reports this week. I want to see if their software division is holding back what could be massive hardware growth from the AI buildout.

Friday's Jobs Report 
February nonfarm payrolls are our last clean look at the labor market before the geopolitical noise took over. A hot number kills what's left of rate cut hopes.

Strait of Hormuz 
Watch whether Navy escorts actually begin and if tanker traffic resumes. Every day the strait stays closed, the energy price premium gets stickier. I'm watching this more closely than anything else right now.

QatarEnergy Production 
Any prolonged outage forces European and Asian LNG buyers to fight over limited supply. This could get ugly fast if production doesn't restart soon.

Emerging Market Currencies 
EM currencies are getting hammered by the dollar rally and energy shock. Franklin Templeton flagged that a correction beyond ten percent depends entirely on how the conflict unfolds from here.

Thanks for reading - you are now the more informed 🙂

- John

Today’s Sponsor

What do these names have in common?

• Arnold Schwarzenegger

• Codie Sanchez

• Scott Galloway

• Colin & Samir

• Shaan Puri

• Jay Shetty

They all run their businesses on beehiiv. Newsletters, websites, digital products, and more. beehiiv is the only platform you need to take your content business to the next level.

🚨Limited time offer: Get 30% off your first 3 months on beehiiv. Just use code PLATFORM30 at checkout.

Start building for 30% off today.