Everyone loves a party. Especially when the party makes you money. Forget that the money you’re making now is the same money you lost last month. It’s still fun.
And so, the stock market is having fun today.
And why not? America and Iran are not exactly kissin’ cousins now, but at least nobody’s civilization will end. Not today, anyway.
The stocks of the boomers are booming, oil is crashing, monster pickup sales to monster drivers will certainly become monstrous again, the Pope (who is “God’s representative on Earth,” a reader informs me) will take credit for a few days, and we’ll probably get a docu-fiction war movie courtesy of War Secretary Hegseth, starring War Secretary Hegseth.
Still, I’m skeptical. I’m not selling into this market uptick, mind you, just as I was not buying into the preceding market dip. Er, market correction. Er, market crash.
You see, I’m a buy-and-hold sort of guy. I don’t pretend to know more about market values than, say, Goldman Sachs and their mega-massive-computing computers and their MBAs who learned at Harvard how to extract insider information from public company Chief Financial Officers. (I won’t give away their secrets, but have you heard the name Jeffrey Epstein?)
So long as you don’t bet against Goldman Sachs, a diverse stock portfolio has proven to be a good investment over a period of decades, and it will probably continue to be, and so that’s where I keep most of my meager money.
I’m just sayin’, as they say, that the people who try to time the stock market are probably getting this one wrong in their buying spree this morning.
Because this cease fire is flawed seven ways to Sunday. To name a few:
Even now after the cease fire has been announced, it still has not taken effect. Iran is still lobbing missiles and drones at its neighbors. I always thought the sine qua non of a cease fire was that everyone ceases firing, but I’m old school.
If Iran finally observes the cease fire by ceasing its firing, rest assured that it will then violate the cease fire by ceasing its cease fire.
It’s who they are: Missile and drone lobbers. That, and terror financiers.
We are told that the big condition to the cease fire is the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz – that waterway that Iran has closed to the great angst of civilized people everywhere, and also those monsters in the monster pickups.
So how exactly is that supposed to happen? Who will police it? What happens when a rogue or not-so-rogue Revolutionary Guard lobs an ad hoc drone on a frolic of his own?
Um, details to follow. Uh huh.
This war is not over. But the cease fire is – before it even started.
the Aspen beat 
Glenn, I enjoy you column. I have a practice which makes me money every time. Any time Trump makes a comment, the market always over-reacts. When he started the Tariff strategy, markets dropped. I moved money into the market. Smart.
When the Iran attacks started (note, I did not say war … because we have been at war with Iran since 1979), I left my money in. Trumps initial statements are never a prediction of what he will do. It’s only the start of his negotiation. He can settle for less and still get more than what he had previously. Finally, we have someone in the White House who actually built things and did things.
I’m leaving Colorado (Denver) in 3 years when my wife retires. There is no saving Denver or Colorado from Democrats. Company HQ’s are fleeing Denver faster than rats jumping off the ship. Do you see a correlation with this fact and the many restaurants closing in Denver?
I’ll read your columns from my 55+ community home in Rio Verde, AZ.
Up until the 90s, Denver was always a cow town, far from the country’s business centers. That changed a bit with oil and gas, and then the cable TV business.
Now it’s a cow town again, except this time it doesn’t even have cows. There’s no industry to speak of, downtown is abandoned, and a super-woke government has no clue how to get the town back on its feet.
Denver will be a third-rate city for a long time, in the tier of Cincinnati and San Antonio, and behind second-tier cities like Minneapolis and St Louis and Phoenix.
Tellingly, people don’t even see Denver as hip anymore. More people are moving out of Colorado than in, for the first time in over a generation. Oh well, maybe I can have a peaceful walk in the mountains again.
Safe travels!
I am a little surprised that you failed to mention Israel’s massive attacks against Beirut today. The Iranian ten point plan included a mandatory ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon as well as Iran. Clearly, Israel will do anything it can to prevent this war from ending.
Israel was not a party to the cease fire deal, and was apparently not even informed of it until it was a done deal. As a non-party to the deal, Israel is technically not bound by it.
That said, your point that the cease fire is already over — assuming it ever began — is valid.