Trump Strikes A Deal To End The Iran War. Oil Falls, And The Dow Closes At A Record.

When a war ends, the relief is real, and Monday’s tape showed it. But I’d gently point clients to two things the celebration skipped. First, the energy spike from the war is already in the inflation data — it doesn’t un-happen because a cease-fire was signed. Second, the rally is pricing in rate cuts, while the conversation inside the Fed has quietly shifted toward hikes, with the hawkish Kevin Warsh chairing his first meeting Wednesday.

We’re not chasing the relief rally. We held our energy and defense insurance through the war and we’re not adding on peace; we’re leaning into durable cash flow, the IPO-cycle banks, the data-center power trade, and a gold sleeve that just told us something. The full lead-story read →

Why Oil Never Went Through The Roof — Even With A War On.

Everyone braced for $120 crude. It topped out around $86 and, once the cease-fire hit, fell toward $80. Four quiet brakes kept the super-spike from ever arriving: the market kept pricing a deal, China pulled back on imports, the ‘Trump factor’ repeatedly jawboned rallies lower, and American shale and reserves simply absorb a shock better than they used to.

The lesson isn’t that oil is safe — it’s that you own energy for the cash flow it pays you, not the spike you’re hoping for. Our XOM, CVX and LNG sleeve is built on dividends and integrated cash flow, which is why it doesn’t live or die on a single headline. Read the full energy note →

The War’s Over — But Inflation Isn’t. Kevin Warsh Takes The Fed’s Chair.

The relief rally assumes the Fed starts cutting. There’s a problem: inflation is still hot from the war’s energy spike, and behind closed doors the Fed conversation has shifted toward whether the next move is a hike. The person steering it is now Kevin Warsh, a known inflation hawk, who chairs his first meeting Wednesday.

We’re positioned for higher-for-longer, not a cutting cycle that may not arrive — quality cash flow, short-duration Treasuries that actually pay, and a gold position (IAU) that just printed a record. The full Fed read →

Teachers Are Cashing In On The AI Data-Center Boom.

In Richland Parish, Louisiana, a giant Meta (META) data-center campus has swelled local tax receipts so much that the school board approved staff bonuses and raised pay. The AI build-out you read about as an abstraction is, in this town, a check that keeps good teachers in classrooms.

The investing lesson is to follow the money to the picks-and-shovels: the build-out spends on land, construction and above all power. We own the trade through the utilities like NextEra (NEE) that feed these campuses, alongside the disciplined hyperscalers. Read the full piece →

Worried About A Tech Bubble? There’s A Cheaper Place To Hide.

The U.S. market has rarely leaned on so few names — the AI complex and its IPO pipeline now drive an outsized share of returns, and the S&P’s dividend yield has fallen near 1.1%. Jason Zweig’s column points to an unglamorous hedge: European stocks, left out of the mania, trade cheaper and yield closer to 3%.

I agree with the destination, not the urgency — the right move is a deliberate international sleeve (VEA, VXUS) held as a permanent diversifier, not a panic dash into whatever’s down. For a lot of DIY investors, that sleeve quietly isn’t there. The full read →

The War’s Quiet Casualty: The World’s Fertilizer.

While everyone watched oil, the war did quieter damage to the fertilizer that grows the world’s food. A big share of it flows through the Middle East and is made from natural gas; when gas spiked, plants curtailed output. Take that feedstock offline at planting season and it lands months later as higher food prices.

It’s one more reason the inflation the Fed is worried about isn’t cooling on cue — and it puts the fertilizer producers, led by Nutrien (NTR), on our watch list as a disrupted-supply, inflation-hedge story. Read more →

Should You Buy The SpaceX IPO? A Planner’s Honest Answer.

SpaceX (SPCX) is public at a ~$1.75 trillion valuation — $18.7B in revenue, a ~$4.94B loss, roughly 94x sales. We wrote the full CFP-grounded buy/no-buy: what you’re actually buying, the IPO rules that mean you won’t pay $135, how eight landmark IPOs actually performed, and a position-sizing verdict by risk tier.

The short version: own the theme, respect the price, and if you buy the stock, size it like the speculation it is — capped under 5%, after the froth and the December lockup. Read the full assessment →

The Knicks Waited 53 Years. Your Retirement Shouldn’t Have To.

It took the Knicks fifty-three years to win it all again. Fifty-three years is a vesting period — and the whole point of a real plan is that you shouldn’t have to wait that long for the money you’ve earned. From 401(k) match cliffs to RSUs to the five-year pension vest, here’s how to tell patient compounding apart from needless waiting.

A plan maps every vesting timeline against your retirement date, so the waiting is deliberate and the payoff is captured. Read the full essay →