Althouse: "Investors appear to be treating an end to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as a foregone conclusion, as the S&P 500 closes above 7,000."

April 15, 2026

"Investors appear to be treating an end to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as a foregone conclusion, as the S&P 500 closes above 7,000."

The NYT reports.

64 comments:

Achilles said...: And it is all Trump's fault.; 4/15/26, 6:25 PM
Saint Croix said...: Nasdaq rocking!; 4/15/26, 6:25 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: Passive inflows to the S&P are so large everything else is now just noise. Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time; 4/15/26, 6:30 PM
Achilles said...: Little Excursion™️ said...

Passive inflows to the S&P are so large everything else is now just noise. Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time

Also remember how completely wrong Chuck was about everything and how stupid he looks right now.; 4/15/26, 6:35 PM
Old and slow said...: That's been my benchmark for the war progress. The market is collectively very positive, and I'm loving it!; 4/15/26, 6:38 PM
wildswan said...: I'm closing the Gulf of Hormuz. Now you will be blamed.

Well, I'm closing the Gulf of Hormuz and I'm inviting everyone to party on over to the Gulf of America. Yeah, c'mon and get tanked up.

Wait, you can't close a shipping lane, that's against the rules-based order and can only be done by the side usimg asymmetric war.

Well, I've killed your leaders, bombed your Air Force, blown up your Air Defence and sunk your Navy. I've got your IRGC and Basij deep in an enemy country surrounded by merciless opponents who are slowly arming. It's like watching a wolf grow. That's pretty asymmetric so, anyhow, now I'm closing down your oil shipments. Sayonara.; 4/15/26, 6:42 PM
Peachy said...: oh no!; 4/15/26, 6:47 PM
Peachy said...: Gas prices almost got as high as the Crook Joe biden years.; 4/15/26, 6:50 PM
Howard said...: More good news

Current Status (April 15, 2026):
Direct Talks Begun: Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met in Washington D.C. to begin negotiations, described by U.S. officials as a "historic opportunity".; 4/15/26, 6:54 PM
rehajm said...: Markets aren’t big on helping NYT with narratives…; 4/15/26, 6:55 PM
Rabel said...: We declared a blockade of their ports while the ceasefire is in effect. That's a little like crossing the river on Christmas Eve, but kosher(!) if we're not shooting Iranians. That's a win.

If they decide to violate the ceasefire and start shooting at us they're back to "power plants and bridges." That's a win.

And their oil money inflow has stopped dead as an Ayatollah. That's a win.

Sorry if that annoys you losers out there.; 4/15/26, 6:57 PM
Peachy said...: "dead as an Ayatollah"

That should be a song.; 4/15/26, 7:06 PM
Achilles said...: Howard said...

More good news

Current Status (April 15, 2026):
Direct Talks Begun: Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met in Washington D.C. to begin negotiations, described by U.S. officials as a "historic opportunity".

Once again the people of Lebanon were never enthusiastic about Hezbollah occupying a huge part of their country and being the globalist proxy force to destabilize the region.

Israel has been wiping out Hezbollah. The normal people in Lebanon never wanted that fight. Now that the Mullahs in Iran are gone the people of Lebanon are ready to join the Abraham accords.

Now the Jews and the Arabs can agree on things and live in peace without European/Chinese shia/palestinian proxies being assholes.

All it took was a President to actually put America First.; 4/15/26, 7:08 PM
Peachy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/15/26, 7:11 PM
boatbuilder said...: Investors are starting to figure out what Trump is doing.; 4/15/26, 7:15 PM
Peachy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/15/26, 7:17 PM
boatbuilder said...: Passive inflows to the S&P are so large everything else is now just noise. Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time
Ahahaha! That's the funniest thing Kak has posted in a very long time--and he's posted some doozies.
Remember when the tariffs were going to crater not only the market but the US economy? Everybody with a 401K was going to working at Walmart? I do. I sold nothing. I made about 25% last year.; 4/15/26, 7:21 PM
Achilles said...: I guess the future isn't Chinese anymore.; 4/15/26, 7:24 PM
n.n said...: The American-Abrahamic alliance will not reward transnational terrorism aided and abetted by the regime. In the meantime, they will clear the mines that time forgot after an ill-conceieved affair, to ensure safe passage and deprive their creators of forward-looking leverage.; 4/15/26, 7:25 PM
boatbuilder said...: Lloyds of London hardest hit.; 4/15/26, 7:27 PM
Original Mike said...: Wait, I thought Iran had already won.; 4/15/26, 7:27 PM
Original Mike said...: "Direct Talks Begun: Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met in Washington D.C. to begin negotiations, described by U.S. officials as a "historic opportunity"."

Opportunity, indeed.

"We'd like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations. They're not needed."

LOL.; 4/15/26, 7:29 PM
Achilles said...: And now it is time to deal with starmer, merz, and macron.

Also put a timer on Xi. I give him 4 months just off the top of my head.; 4/15/26, 7:30 PM
n.n said...: Investors are looking for stability. No premature evacuations where conflict progresses, no impulsive initiatives with green deals.; 4/15/26, 7:31 PM
narciso said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/15/26, 7:32 PM
narciso said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/15/26, 7:32 PM
Achilles said...: I wonder if Meloni is ready to apologize. The Spanish scumweasel and his corrupt wife wont be long for their post either.; 4/15/26, 7:32 PM
narciso said...: Norwegian blue parrots; 4/15/26, 7:32 PM
narciso said...: She chose poorly one is reminded of achille lauro and sigonella naval base; 4/15/26, 7:34 PM
Jersey Fled said...: “ Gas prices almost got as high as the Crook Joe biden years.”

The difference is that Joe liked then that that way. And hoped they’d go higher.; 4/15/26, 7:45 PM
Aggie said...: I still suspect there are Iranian tricks remaining, but as always: We'll see. Yesterday one of the senior Basij commanders was stabbed to death in the street, stabbed about a dozen times. Maybe the social tide is turning, internally. If this is truly the end for the theocracy/autocracy, then the blockade might come to be seen as one of the great 'Now youse can't leave' moments in recent times. I guess the 2-week ceasefire countdown leaves us with another week, and then we'll see if more staff reductions are announced for the IRGC and Basij.; 4/15/26, 7:48 PM
Dave Begley said...: Report from Tousi TV that armed Iranians are killing IRGC leaders. And as I wrote earlier, Iran is losing $400m per day.

Inflation and unemployment are out of control.

None of the above reported on CNN and MS NOW.; 4/15/26, 7:51 PM
Hassayamper said...: I sold nothing. I made about 25% last year.

Same. I didn't sell a single share. In fact, between my regular maxed-out 401k contributions and some cash received from the family business, I put over $100k into the market since January 2025. I'll have quite a bit more from my stake in the Oklahoma/Texas oil patch to add to that this year. Feels fucking good to be a winner and even better to rub the leftscum's nose in it.; 4/15/26, 7:51 PM
Hassayamper said...: The difference is that Joe liked then that that way. And hoped they’d go higher.

In the Obama years the Democrats were practically boasting of how much we'd benefit from $10/gallon gas.; 4/15/26, 7:54 PM
Hassayamper said...: And now it is time to deal with starmer, merz, and macron.

British intelligence was up to their eyeballs in the Russia hoax to overthrow our elected President, and probably the French and Germans and the European Commission scum were too.

We should take the opportunity to pay them back tenfold, at the very least perfidious Albion, with everything we can reasonably do to help get Farage in No. 10 and deliver an almighty death blow to Labour and Tories alike.; 4/15/26, 7:59 PM
Achilles said...: Aggie said...

I still suspect there are Iranian tricks remaining, but as always: We'll see. Yesterday one of the senior Basij commanders was stabbed to death in the street, stabbed about a dozen times. Maybe the social tide is turning, internally. If this is truly the end for the theocracy/autocracy, then the blockade might come to be seen as one of the great 'Now youse can't leave' moments in recent times. I guess the 2-week ceasefire countdown leaves us with another week, and then we'll see if more staff reductions are announced for the IRGC and Basij.

The real problem for them is where do they go? Sadr city?

Nobody likes them anywhere.; 4/15/26, 8:00 PM
narciso said...: They would have to cross through kurdistan right?; 4/15/26, 8:14 PM
Enigma said...: @Little E: Passive inflows to the S&P are so large everything else is now just noise.

You didn't look at your portfolio between 2021 and 2023? The market went down hard when Biden implemented Carter-like inflationary spending. Then, Biden's propagandists said inflation was "transitory" until they couldn't even lie to themselves any more.

Little E has the world's shortest and most selective memory.; 4/15/26, 8:29 PM
narciso said...: Like the guy on memento; 4/15/26, 8:32 PM
Ambrose said...: Peace is a foregone conclusion? Whatever happened to the left's war profiteer theme? NYT reporters may be too young to remember any of that.; 4/15/26, 8:44 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: Good day to remember this.
'Nothing like price to change sentiment'; 4/15/26, 8:47 PM
Greg The Class Traitor said...: Aggie said...
Yesterday one of the senior Basij commanders was stabbed to death in the street, stabbed about a dozen times. Maybe the social tide is turning, internally

Yes, that's what's giving me hope, that the Iranians actually still have some fight left in them.

Not the Mad Mullahs, the Iranian people; 4/15/26, 8:59 PM
Peachy said...: X - Eric Daugherty

"HOLY SMOKES. Sec. Scott Bessent just said that because Iran BOMBED Gulf neighbors, those countries are suddenly opening up Iranian regime BANK accounts to Treasury

So he can FREEZE their assets! Checkmate playing out. 🔥

"What may prove to be FATAL mistakes the Iranians made was bombing their [Gulf] NEIGHBORS."; 4/15/26, 9:14 PM
Original Mike said...: "Yesterday one of the senior Basij commanders was stabbed to death in the street, stabbed about a dozen times."

Encouraging.; 4/15/26, 9:19 PM
Peachy said...: Minnesota - the JOKE state (D); 4/15/26, 9:22 PM
Iman said...: Enigma, let’s just leave it at TinyE® has the world’s shortest ___
That covers all the bases.; 4/15/26, 9:34 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Not possible- I have been assured by experts in the press that the U.S. not only lost the war but our economy was going to tank because of it. Indeed, a very confident expert in these very threads has told us over and over that the market was going to crash, interest rates were going permanently above 5%, and that Trump was going to drop dead from a stroke before the 4th of July. Ok, ok, I made that last one up so there is now a high probability of Bich getting that one correct.; 4/15/26, 9:47 PM
Achilles said...: Looks like Ireland has had enough of their globalist shitbirds too.; 4/15/26, 10:30 PM
Old and slow said...: The cessation of fighting may (or may not) reset the clock on the war powers act, giving the president another 60 days to act without congressional approval. If nothing else, it is unclear what it means, which buys more time. Congress is loathe to take any action one way or another, so it may be a moot point.; 4/15/26, 11:09 PM
Old and slow said...: Don't expect much more from Ireland. The hauliers have had their fun, and now they will go back to work. The Irish always talk a good game, and they are fed up in some quarters, but Dublin makes the decisions and the Irish are very progressive and compliant. All the unrest will pass as quickly as it started I'm afraid.; 4/15/26, 11:12 PM
JIM said...: The blockade will have the desired effect in the next 10 days; that's when Iran will face the double dare stage - abandon their oil wells forever, cratering their oil dependent economy or accept the terms that Trump has laid out.; 4/16/26, 12:20 AM
Saint Croix said...: "Yesterday one of the senior Basij commanders was stabbed to death in the street, stabbed about a dozen times."

The gun grabbers forgot to get the knives.; 4/16/26, 7:02 AM
Bob B said...: rehajm said...
Markets aren’t big on helping NYT with narratives…

Luckily for the Left, the NYT is not reliant on facts to report the news.; 4/16/26, 7:19 AM
Kevin said...: It's the end of the war as we know it.

And the markets feel fine.; 4/16/26, 7:40 AM
Christopher B said...: JIM, not that the mad mullahs aren't facing a Hobson's Choice but the recent claims about potential permanent damage to their oil production are at least overblown. I've seen informed comment the proposed cause, water infiltration, is entirely misconstrued and I think bad analogies are being drawn from the collapse of Venezuelan production which was more of a death spiral caused by lack of infrastructure maintenance leading to production declining to the point revenue could not fund the necessary repairs.; 4/16/26, 7:45 AM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: 'Investors who bought the S&P 500 when the VIX closed above 30 enjoyed positive returns 70% to 83% of the time' ~ Bloomberg

'A rise in the equity market’s fear gauge is usually a signal of a rally to come'

Surely in a 30 year bull market almost any indicator would reward a “buy” most of the time?; 4/16/26, 8:26 AM
mikee said...: It isn't over until the Iranian people says it is over. We'll know that it is over when we see Basij and mullahs hanging from lamp posts. Hopefully soon.; 4/16/26, 8:27 AM
Enigma said...: @Little E --

It depends on your timeframe and personal generational luck. If you went all in on tech in the year 2000...you'd be down for years and years. If you bought pet.com stock or AOL/Time Warner...ha ha hah ha ha. Look up "lost decade," "stagflation," and "Great Depression."

If you SPENT your tech investments to fund your retirement between 2000 and 2009, you'd likely have run out of money and become a gray-haired McDonald's employee. Plenty of reckless or ignorant or unfortunate older people do get forced into that type of job.

Look up "sequence of returns risk" and "time horizon" and other elementary investing comments before you sputter.; 4/16/26, 9:08 AM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: ⬆ Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time

The VIX loses its predictive power in a market that only goes up. Current market participants have never known a drawdown, so they'll just keep shoveling money into the market until something breaks. I bet you couldn't find 1 in 20 market participants who could tell you +/- 5 what the normalized market multiple is. We're going to need a lot more job losses or something that actually stresses income before people give up their naive indifference to valuation.; 4/16/26, 9:24 AM
Josephbleau said...: “ but the recent claims about potential permanent damage to their oil production are at least overblown. I've seen informed comment the proposed cause, water infiltration, is entirely misconstrued”

Really? To most operators a six month shut in equals quasi abandonment, or at least significant mitigation to control well scaling and wax deposition. Multiphase systems exhibit hysteresis in relative permeability curves. Equilibration and crystallization with fines redistribution and clay swelling result in permanent permeability loss. Perhaps 20 to 30 pct.

It won’t be a 100% loss, but it will absolutely require a lot of contractors from around the world to stimulate the wells. Big money. And permanent reservoir damage is not imaginary.; 4/16/26, 12:25 PM
Enigma said...: @Little E did not read the part about spending investments to fund retirement. The needs of an organization are not the needs of a person who must have cash tomorrow to pay a mortgage or hospital bill.; 4/16/26, 1:28 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: My comments were generally related to the Bloomberg article re VIX.

You're right—sequence of returns risk and time horizon matter a lot, especially near retirement. The 2000–2009 lost decade was brutal: S&P 500 was basically flat to down, tech/dot-com bets got crushed, and forced withdrawals could wipe people out.That said, those examples warn against reckless concentration (all-in tech at peak valuations), not against equities broadly. Diversified stock portfolios have recovered from every major crash and lost decade in history, though the path and 'generational luck' vary wildly.Key is proper asset allocation, rebalancing, and flexible withdrawals to handle sequence risk—not timing the market or going all-in on hot sectors.What allocation do you prefer for different timeframes?

I’m 58 and retired, my RMD window is further into the future than your examples

I’m 80/20 — equities/cash

Traditional 401K
40% iShares MSCI ACWI ex U.S. ETF
20% DWCPF
20% SPX
20% VMRXX:

ROTH
100% VFIAX

FWIW — why the insults and general negativity?; 4/16/26, 3:55 PM
Enigma said...: An admission of error from Tiny Little E!?!?

The third post from the top: Passive inflows to the S&P are so large everything else is now just noise.

N. O. P. E. Case by case. Age by age. Period by period. Cash vs. portfolio size matters.

The S&P 500 has turned into a self-feeding machine per 401k contributions. Yes. It's a "can't lose" option. A veritable Clockwork Orange.

It'll work just fine until it doesn't.; 4/16/26, 6:58 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: 401(k) autopilot contributions create a relentless bid for the S&P 500's biggest names, making everything else feel like noise in the short run.

History shows these setups don't break cleanly or predictably. Passive inflows have amplified concentration (top 5-10 stocks driving a huge chunk of returns in recent years, including 2025's ~17% S&P gain), which boosts volatility for those mega-caps and dulls price discovery elsewhere.

For a 25-year-old with decades ahead, dollar-cost averaging into broad U.S. large-caps has been hard to beat long-term, even through bubbles and crashes. For someone nearing retirement or with a big portfolio relative to cash needs, sequence-of-returns risk matters a lot more—drawing down in a -30-50% drawdown hurts differently than riding it out.

Cash vs. portfolio size is key: Emergency funds, near-term spending, or dry powder for opportunistic buys aren't "noise"—they're risk management. Blindly feeding the machine regardless of valuation (Shiller CAPE elevated, concentration at extremes) has risks, as seen in past concentrated eras.

Best approach for most: Stay diversified (S&P as core, but tilt toward broader exposure, international, or quality factors if concentration worries you), contribute consistently, rebalance by age/time horizon, and don't treat it as set-it-and-forget-it without a plan for when 'it doesn't.' The machine works until human behavior, macro shocks, or valuation gravity intervenes. Prepare for both scenarios.; 4/16/26, 7:14 PM