Macro & Markets Daily — Mar 17, 2026

Stocks rallied on St. Patrick's Day; oil erased the gains by the close; and the Fed started a two-day meeting that will define the rest of the quarter. The S&P 500 closed up about 1.0% on the session, at 6,699, but Brent crude climbed back above $103 after it became clear that no country had agreed to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Gold punched through $5,000 an ounce, which tells you everything about how much faith institutional money has in a clean resolution to any of this.

President Trump asked the world to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The world said no.

Brent crude closed at $103.42, up 3.2% on the session, and WTI settled at $96.21, up 2.9% on the session, after every country Trump publicly appealed to — China, Japan, France, the UK — declined to commit naval escorts. Macron said France would never join while hostilities continue. NATO broadly echoed the sentiment. Trump responded on social media that the U.S. doesn't need allies anyway, which some traders said prompted buying on the session.

The IEA's March report calls this the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Crude flows through Hormuz have collapsed from about 20 million barrels per day to a trickle, with Gulf production cut by at least 10 million barrels per day. Hundreds of tankers sit idle on both sides. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve release covers roughly 20 days of normal Hormuz flows — a bandage, not a fix.

The mechanism that should worry you isn't the price — it's the physical absence of supply. Emergency reserves buy time. A coalition with no members buys nothing. Every day Hormuz stays closed, the "temporary shock" thesis gets harder to defend.

The FOMC began its two-day meeting today. The rate decision drops tomorrow at 2:00 PM ET, with Powell's press conference at 2:30 PM. CME FedWatch shows a 92%+ probability of a hold at 3.50%–3.75%. Nobody cares about the rate.

What everyone cares about is the dot plot — the chart where each FOMC member writes down where they think rates will be over the next few years. The current median shows one 25-basis-point cut for 2026. If that shifts to zero, the market reprices immediately: equities down, dollar up, mortgage rates sticky. If it somehow nudges to two cuts, risk assets rally. The Summary of Economic Projections will be the first official Fed forecast incorporating the oil shock — if they mark up inflation and mark down GDP simultaneously, the word "stagflation" will be in every headline by Wednesday night.

There's a subtext that has nothing to do with economics. Powell is effectively a lame duck — his term expires May 23, and Trump's expected nominee, Kevin Warsh, advocates using AI to help set interest rates, a sharp philosophical departure. In January, the DOJ served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas over a headquarters renovation project. Powell called it "a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President." Tomorrow's press conference may sound less like a rate explanation and more like a man defending an institution.

Gold closed at $5,019 per ounce, up $23 on the session. A year ago it was near $2,600.

This isn't a momentum trade. It's a hedge against a specific scenario: inflation re-accelerates from the oil shock, the Fed can't cut because prices are rising, growth slows because energy costs are crushing consumers, and the dollar loses purchasing power. That's the 1970s stagflation playbook, and gold is the oldest asset in it.

The mechanism: when real interest rates — what you earn on Treasuries after subtracting inflation — fall or turn negative, gold becomes relatively more attractive because it doesn't pay interest but also doesn't lose value to inflation. With core PCE already at 2.8% and oil pouring fresh pressure on top, real rates are being squeezed hard. Analysts had forecast that $100 oil could add 0.8% to global inflation. We're already past $100. Tomorrow's dot plot is gold's first real test at this level — a hawkish surprise would challenge the thesis; a dovish lean would confirm it.

Closing tape: The S&P 500 closed up about 1.0% on the session, at 6,699. The Nasdaq closed up about 1.2% on the session, at 22,374. The Dow added 388 points on the session, closing at 46,946. The VIX dropped over 13% on the session, to 23.54. The 10-year Treasury yield settled at 4.22% on the session, with the 2-year at 3.67% — a mildly positive slope that says markets aren't fully pricing recession. Asset managers KKR, Blackstone, BlackRock and Blue Owl rose 2–4% on the session amid receding private-credit default fears — which tells you those fears were elevated enough to matter in the first place.

A president asking the world for help and getting silence, a central bank chair defending his institution while lawyers circle, and a yellow metal that just crossed a number most people thought was a typo two months ago.

Somewhere in a Gulf port, a sulfur tanker is sitting idle — and a semiconductor fab on the other side of the planet is about to find out they're connected.

Stay sharp out there.

If someone you know is staring at a dot plot tomorrow and doesn't know what they're looking at, forward them this.