The Boy Who Cried Wolf: Trump Edition
The Regime Change Trade
Monday morning and futures were down bigly, the Nasdaq was making 6 months lows and WTI was back above $100. As we explained last week, Trump is looking at the “scoreboard” and not the battlefield. And he doesn’t like it when the market goes against him.
Last week in Trump is Pot Committed I wrote:
Brink and Back
Trump’s market obsession shows there will only be a change in direction if markets take a big hit. A crash in equities and/or a spike in US treasury yields. Only a market event could wake Trump up and cause him to retreat.
This can come either when the market realises that what’s happening in the battlefield is very far from what the Administration is saying – or when Iran short circuits the US economy via the ways broken down in AI-ran.
Crude is at $100 right now, it was below $60 in January. All this price pressure will start to spiral through the economy. Inflation will once again start to bite, and this is considering Oil and Gas don't spike even higher.
US military losses carry no major cost to him. In fact, I could even see him putting actual boots on the ground in an attempt to try and get a win out of all this.
And after the Trump attempt to TACO – we saw a 4% reversal on the Nasdaq back into our yellow level, with a rally in PM’s — and a 10% crash in Oil.
The TACO-Market Pavlovian Conditioning is so strong — that markets rally no matter how much truth there is to that TACO.
What are the Iranians saying?
Professor Marandi, the unofficial spokesperson for what Iran is about to do, says there are no talks – and so is everyone else in Iran.
🇮🇷 "There are no talks right now, direct or indirect. I assure you, absolutely NO TALKS."
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) March 23, 2026
— Professor Marandi pic.twitter.com/lbVwgt6VNH
And the way I see it, Iran cannot ceasefire. Their people are in the streets in support of the government and Khamenei is dead. Iran needs to establish deterrence – a ceasefire is off the table.
Many are disregarding the war around the Persian Gulf as just a side show to an unstoppable AI-backed Bull Market. If you are one of them, this is a great place to start 👇
Philoinvestor
Meanwhile, Desperado Altman at Open AI seems to be trying to raise funding from PE firms at a 17.5% return. The desperation is real.
On Friday I added another name to my AI Short Basket. Yes, it's possibly the most loved name across sectors and strategies – Google! I initiated the short at $303.
Why? Because I'm preparing for the bust... 👇
Philoinvestor
Fading the TACO – explosively
The market still believes that everything is under control and Trump has this covered. In their view, there's simply NO WAY Iran is in the driver's seat.
I don't care, I'm keeping my shorts.
In fact, I am fading the TACO so confidently, so explosively – that I want to express the view that Trump could be out of office before the end of his term. But there are so many ways to win on this trade, that Trump can finish his term and I still end up printing here. Yes, that's how the world works!
The Regime Change Trade
I'm adding a targeted short on the most counter-intuitive trade you can think of.
If you wanted to hedge your positions against problems with the Trump Administration
- and/or a recession in the US
- and/or problems with the Petrodollar
- and/or problems with the US's fiscal position
- and/or a relative decline of the US in the global power hierarchy
How would you play it?
(By the way, join us on Telegram at https://t.me/philoinvestortg)
