THE DEAN’S LIST: The Week the Market Fought Back

Dean’s note:
You’re looking at a scoreboard that finally has some green on it. Before you exhale too hard, pull up the Single-Digit Millionaire portfolio. I built it because I got tired of watching good people make bad decisions with their money based on one scary number on a screen. What you’ll see: half the S&P 500 sectors are flat to positive this year. The equal-weight index is barely down. Small caps and foreign stocks are quietly doing their job. The loudest number on the screen has been hiding a much calmer story underneath for weeks. Go see it. Then come back. And if it helps, forward this to someone you care about who’s been white-knuckling their 401(k). These data calm the nerves better than I can.

The five-week losing streak is over. Tuesday offered up an unconfirmed report that Iran’s president is open to ending the war. That single move tells you everything about this market. It’s sitting on the buy button, waiting for permission.

But the permission hasn’t fully arrived. The Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed. Trump delivered a prime-time address on Wednesday that promised two to three more weeks of strikes but offered no end date. Gas crossed $4 nationally. Oil spiked past $113 on Thursday before the news of the Iran-Oman shipping corridor pulled it back slightly. And Trump just moved his Strait deadline to Tuesday, threatening to strike power plants and bridges if Iran doesn’t comply.

Then the quiet bombshell. On Good Friday, with markets closed, the economy added 178,000 jobs. Three times the 57,000 expected. Unemployment fell to 4.3%. Wage growth slowed. The labor market is not cracking. That’s the firewall between correction and recession. But always looking backwards. This data is pretty old and stale.

Q1 is in the books. The S&P fell 4.6%. Energy surged 30%. Tech had its worst stretch since 2002. But the quarter ended with the best weekly rally in months, and the setup heading into Q2 might just be very different from the one we walked into in January.

A week that started with a surge and ended with markets closed for Good Friday. Here’s what mattered:

Monday (March 30): A monster day. An unconfirmed report said Iran's President Pezeshkian is open to ending the war on the condition of guarantees. The S&P gained 2.91%. The Nasdaq jumped 3.83%, its best day for all three indexes since May. NVIDIA invested $2 billion in Marvell Technology to build AI factories and silicon photonics together. 

Tuesday (March 31): Quarter-end. The Journal reported that Trump is considering winding down the military presence without resolving the Strait. Warren Buffett on CNBC: he sold Apple too soon and would buy more, but not in this market. February retail sales beat at +0.6%. But the hiring rate fell to 3.1%, the lowest since the pandemic. Nike dropped 14% on a weak outlook, heading for its fifth straight year of declines. 

Wednesday (April 1): Trump posted that Iran’s president asked for a ceasefire. His condition: the Strait must be open, free, and clear first. Iran denied it. That evening, Trump’s first prime-time address on the war: military objectives nearly met, two to three more weeks of extremely hard strikes, told allies to go to the Strait and just TAKE IT. Markets shrugged. The S&P gained 0.72%, mostly on WTI below $100. Also, on Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs of up to 100% on patented drugs if pharma companies don’t cut deals within 120 days. It was the first anniversary of Liberation Day.

Thursday (April 2): The wildest session. Iranian state media reported that Tehran is working with Oman to establish a corridor for monitored ships to pass through the Strait. About 100 ships have passed including Indian, Pakistani, and Chinese vessels. It’s a trickle, not a reopening. But it’s the first trickle in five weeks. The S&P closed up 0.11% after being down 1.5% at the lows. Tesla reported Q1 deliveries of 358,000, missing estimates by about 7,600. Stock dropped 5.5%. The UN Security Council is prepared to vote on a Bahraini resolution on Friday to secure passage through the Strait.

Friday (April 3): Good Friday. Markets closed. The jobs report: 178,000 new positions in March, three times the 57,000 expected. Unemployment fell to 4.3%. Wage growth slowed to 3.8% annually. The 10-year yield ticked up 3 basis points. The labor market is holding. 

The S&P 500 fell 4.6% in Q1. Worst first quarter since 2022. March alone was down about 7%.

But look under the hood. Energy stocks surged 30%. Utilities and consumer staples held up. The equal-weight S&P 500 barely declined. Small caps and international stocks were flat. Half the sectors in the index were flat to positive for the year.

The headline got dragged down by a handful of mega-cap tech names. The tech sector logged its worst five-month streak since 2002. Application software dropped 23% on AI disruption fears. Tesla and Amazon, the biggest weights in consumer discretionary, both fell sharply.

Dean’s note:
The market isn’t uniformly weak. It’s rotating. Money is moving out of growth and into value, out of tech and into energy and defensive names. That rotation started in mid-2025 and has only accelerated since the war began. If your portfolio is truly diversified, Q1 was uncomfortable but manageable. If it’s concentrated in mega-cap tech, it was brutal. That’s the lesson. Diversification isn’t exciting in good times. It’s the thing that keeps you solvent in hard times.

On Good Friday, the economy reported 178,000 new jobs. Three times the 57,000 expected. Unemployment fell to 4.3%. And here’s the detail that matters for inflation: wage growth slowed to 3.8% year-over-year. That’s the sweet spot, strong hiring without accelerating wages. The Fed can be patient. The February report showing 92,000 jobs lost now looks like a blip, not a trend.

Dean’s note:
Recessions don’t start with 178,000 jobs being added and unemployment falling. They just don’t. Do you think something shifted in March to derail this data? I don’t. The slowing wage growth is a bonus. It gives the Fed cover to hold rates instead of hiking. That means no rate hike. Patient Fed is a good Fed. And a good Fed will be good for your portfolio.

What he said: military objectives nearly met. Iran decimated. Two to three more weeks of hard strikes. Gas will come down when the war ends.

What he didn’t say: When exactly the war ends. How the Strait reopens. What does victory mean?

Dean’s note:
The market will decide when it has an end date. It doesn’t require a declaration. When every rally isn’t followed by a selloff, you will know the conflict is over. Trump just moved the deadline to Tuesday with escalated threats. OPEC+ met over the weekend. Watch Tuesday.

On Wednesday, exactly one year after Liberation Day, Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs of up to 100% on certain patented drugs from companies that don’t reach pricing deals with the administration within 120 to 180 days.

Seventeen deals have already been reached. Thirteen are signed. But the order rattled pharma stocks.

Dean’s note:
This isn’t just about drug prices. This is the administration signaling that tariffs remain a tool it will use aggressively, even during war. For investors, the takeaway is to watch which pharma companies sign deals and which resist. The ones who sign get certainty. The ones that resist get a 100% tariff hanging over them.

NVIDIA invested $2 billion in Marvell Technology. Marvell will build custom accelerator chips compatible with Nvidia’s rack-scale infrastructure. Silicon photonics. AI factories. The stock jumped 8%.

Add this to the list: Nvidia’s $1 trillion in orders. Micron’s $33.5 billion guidance. Arm’s $15 billion AGI CPU. Meta’s $27 billion Nebius deal. The AI infrastructure buildout is not pausing for oil, wars, or whispers of a rate hike. These are decade-long bets.

Dean’s note:
When the oil premium fades, these are the names that snap back first and hardest. That’s not hope. That’s $2 billion in fresh capital being deployed while gas is at $4.

Oil shocks don’t cancel decade-long bets.

The five-week losing streak is done. The S&P posted its best week since May. And the economy added 178,000 jobs.

• The deadline just shifted. Trump moved it to Tuesday and threatened to strike Iranian power plants and bridges in an expletive-laden post on Sunday. Iran isn’t blinking publicly. Behind the scenes, things are moving. Tehran exempted Iraq from all Strait restrictions on Saturday, potentially unlocking 3 million barrels a day of Iraqi crude. Oman and Iran held deputy foreign minister-level talks on a “smooth passage”. A handful of Western-linked ships have transited for the first time. Iran is even charging tolls up to $2 million per vessel, which is brazen, but also signals they’re monetizing access rather than completely blocking it. That’s a meaningful behavioral shift. And on Friday, an F-15 was shot down over Iran. The second pilot was rescued in a dramatic extraction over the weekend. Some speculate this was a failed attack on Natanz, where Iran’s nuclear material is held. 

•  Oil futures for 2027 are still in the high $60s. I’ve said it for six weeks. Brent is at $112 today, $68 next year. The war premium has an expiration date.

•  178,000 jobs with slowing wages. The labor market is the firewall. As long as people are working, they’re spending. The economy bends but doesn’t break.

•  Q1 was bad for the headline. Not for diversified portfolios. Energy +30%. Half the sectors are flat to positive. If your portfolio told a different story than the S&P, that’s diversification doing its job.

•  AI infrastructure keeps building. Nvidia-Marvell. Arm’s AGI CPU. Decade-long bets at scale. Oil shocks don’t cancel decade-long bets.

•  Next week: Delta earnings, Levi’s, Constellation Brands. PCE inflation data Thursday. This is the data that tells us how much of the oil shock is flowing into consumer prices.

•   Keep contributing to your 401(k). The $24,500 limit is in effect. If you’re 60 - 63, use the $35,750 super catch-up. You’re buying at a discount. That’s how compounding works. It works best when it feels worst.

Q1 is behind us. The losing streak is over. The jobs report punched the recession narrative in the mouth. The market is coiled, and this week the spring released a little.

I don’t know if it will release more next week or compress again. Nobody does. But I know the economy added 178,000 jobs during a war. I know oil futures say $68 next year. I know AI spending is accelerating. And I know every correction with an identifiable, temporary cause has ended at some point.

We have a 10% cash buffer. We’re patient. We’re watching. And this week, for the first time in five weeks, the tape went our way.

Stay zoomed out. Breathe. And watch Tuesday.

- Dean

P.S. 178,000 jobs. During a war. With oil at $112. With gas at $4. The economy is bending, not breaking. That number is the proof.

One more development: an F-15 was shot down over Iran on Friday, the first aircraft lost since the war began. The pilot was rescued over the weekend in a dramatic extraction. Markets were closed for both events. Monday’s open will tell us whether the rescue overshadows the shootdown, or vice versa. Or maybe it’s really a story about boots on the ground to extract Iran’s nuclear material gone wrong. Either way, the stakes just went up.

And one more thought. Warren Buffett said this week he’d buy more Apple, but not in this market. That’s the most Buffett sentence ever spoken. He sees value. He’s patient. He’s waiting for his pitch. The richest, most experienced investor alive is telling you the same thing I’ve been writing for six weeks: the setup is improving. The timing isn’t here yet. Patience is not the same as inaction. It’s the hardest form of action there is. And we could be wrong, never forget that.

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