👀 $111 Crude, First Weekly Win Since Tehran — And a CEO Bet on a $10 Stock

Good afternoon and happy Sunday! Here is a quick market rundown and an ‘inside’ peek behind the curtains of what C-Level Execs, Wall St. Hedge Fund Gurus, and politicians are trading right now…!

📊 Market Recap — Week Ending April 3, 2026

The S&P's first weekly gain since the conflict began — a relief rally built on ceasefire whispers and a last-gasp Thursday recovery. Thursday's session (the last before Good Friday closed the week) saw the Dow slip 0.13% while the S&P and Nasdaq eked out 0.11% and 0.18% gains respectively, recovering from intraday losses exceeding 1.5% after Trump's Wednesday night address rattled futures. The notable divergence: Nasdaq outpaced the blue-chips by over 150 basis points for the week, as tech caught a bid on relative relief. Energy stocks remain the 2026 story, up 25%+ YTD — more than double any other sector.

🔑 Key Drivers & Dynamics

Oil Dominates Everything
WTI crude settled Thursday at $111.54 per barrel — the highest level since June 2022 — after Trump's Wednesday night speech declared the U.S. would hit Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks. Brent followed close behind at $109 per barrel. Jet fuel prices have roughly doubled to over $4 per gallon since the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to through-traffic, and those costs are grinding directly into airline margins. The real sleeper here: helium. One strategist flagged that the Strait's closure matters more for helium supply than oil itself — a wrinkle most of the market hasn't fully priced.

The Fed Is in the Worst Seat in the Room
The Fed held rates steady at its March meeting for the second consecutive time, keeping the federal funds rate in the 3.5%–3.75% range. Powell acknowledged that the oil shock will lift near-term inflation — the updated SEP now projects 2.7% PCE for 2026, up from prior estimates — but officials are betting the disruption is temporary. The problem: CME FedWatch now prices zero cuts in 2026. Chicago Fed President Goolsbee, once among the most dovish voices, acknowledged the energy shock is "pushing these decisions off to 2027 at the earliest." With Powell's term ending May 15 and Kevin Warsh's confirmation stalled in the Senate, you have a Fed with uncertain leadership, a stagflationary backdrop, and markets that have stopped giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Jobs Beat — On a Day Nobody Could Trade It

The March nonfarm payrolls report dropped Friday morning — Good Friday — when the equity markets were closed. The economy added 178,000 jobs, nearly triple the consensus estimate of around 60,000, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%. Wage growth slowed to 3.5% year-over-year, a welcome sign on the inflation front. Bond markets were open in abbreviated session and the 10-year yield jumped to ~4.35% immediately on the release. The full equity reaction waits until Monday, and given the hawkish read-through for rates, the opening will be worth watching closely.

Tesla Stumbles, SpaceX Files

Tesla reported Q1 deliveries of 358,000 vehicles — down 14% from last year and a miss against the company's own consensus estimate of ~364,000. The stock slid more than 5% on the news and is now down roughly 18% year-to-date. Meanwhile, SpaceX confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC, targeting what could be the largest market debut in history — reportedly around a $1.75 trillion valuation. Musk also announced TERAFAB, a $25 billion joint chip manufacturing facility in Austin merging Tesla's AI and SpaceX's data center ambitions. One company is struggling to sell cars. The other is about to ring the bell on Wall Street. Quite a week for the Musk empire.

Nike Gets Stomped Again

Nike shares fell 14.3% after the company posted a weak Q3 outlook, despite beating on the quarter itself. The stock is now down nearly 30% in 2026 — on pace for its fifth consecutive negative year. Consumer discretionary broadly got hit this week as traders processed the gap between Trump's "war is almost over" messaging and the reality that oil is still above $110. Airlines, cruise operators, and consumer brands took the brunt. The message from the tape: the market doesn't believe the ceasefire is imminent, regardless of what's said at the podium.

Insider Spotlight — MED (Medifast)

On March 20, Medifast CEO Daniel Chard purchased 17,678 shares of MED at an average price of $10.11 per share — a total investment of $178,724. This was his first meaningful open-market buy as CEO, bringing his direct ownership to that same 17,678-share position from a prior zero. For context: MED is trading near its 52-week low of $9.22, down from a high of $15.46, hammered by a combination of GLP-1 disruption and a collapse in its OPTAVIA coach network (down 40% year-over-year to 16,100 active coaches). Q4 revenues fell 37% year-over-year. That's the bad news. The good news: Chard is betting his own money at the lows, and the company has launched a GLP-1 Nutrition Support Plan to position alongside the pharma drugs rather than against them. Q1 earnings are due April 28. The CEO buying here — near the 52-week floor — is the kind of signal that tends to show up in the data before a turn.

📌 Key Takeaways

$111 WTI is not a blip — it's the market pricing "weeks, not days" of continued Iran conflict, straight from the president's mouth.

The S&P's first weekly gain in five weeks tells you how low the bar was — a ceasefire rumor from Iranian state media was enough to turn a 1.5% intraday loss into a green close.

The Fed is frozen. Stagflation fears, a leadership vacuum, and an oil shock don't add up to rate cuts — price that into duration.

Monday's open is the first equity reaction to a blowout 178K jobs number — watch the bond market first, equities second.

SpaceX's confidential IPO filing at a ~$1.75T valuation will be the most closely watched market event of the year — every week that passes without a timeline is just coiled spring energy.

 When a CEO buys his own stock for the first time near a 52-week low with earnings four weeks away, that's not noise. Medifast's Chard just put $178K on the table at $10.11. Insiders don't buy for the story — they buy when they see the number.

What We're Watching Next Week

Monday Open — Markets Digest the 178K Jobs Print
Equity markets were closed Friday when the March payrolls blowout hit. 178K jobs added vs. ~60K expected is a decisive beat, and with the 10-year yield jumping to 4.35% in thin Good Friday bond trading, the Monday open will be the first real price discovery session. A strong jobs print in normal times would be bullish — in a stagflation-fear environment with oil above $110, the read is more complicated. Watch whether the bond selloff continues or reverses, and how energy stocks respond to the combination of rate pressure and crude strength.

CPI — Thursday April 10
The March Consumer Price Index is the week's most important data point, full stop. Economists are forecasting an acceleration to ~3.1% annual — up from February's 2.4% — as the Iran war's energy shock starts showing up in the data. A print above 3% will pressure the Fed's already strained "look-through" posture and send rate-cut odds even lower. Any upside surprise here is the catalyst that turns a bad week into a bad month for equities. Don't get caught flat-footed.

FOMC Meeting — April 28–29
The next Fed decision is three weeks out, and with the jobs market showing resilience and inflation reaccelerating, the outcome is not in question — rates hold. What matters is Powell's tone. His term ends May 15, and the Warsh confirmation is still stuck in the Senate. A lame-duck Fed chair navigating a stagflation scare with an energy-driven inflation spike is the setup. Every press conference Powell holds between now and May 15 carries extra weight.

Middle East Diplomacy — Ongoing
Iran and Oman are reportedly drafting a protocol on Strait of Hormuz ship passage — which briefly turned a 600-point Dow loss into a near-flat close on Thursday. Any concrete ceasefire signal is the single biggest upside catalyst in the market right now, and any escalation is the biggest downside risk. The correlation between oil prices and equity moves has been near-perfect since February. Watch crude first thing every morning until this resolves.

Insider Spotlight — MED Earnings April 28

Medifast CEO Daniel Chard's $178,724 open-market purchase on March 20 — his first as CEO, executed near the 52-week low — sets up Q1 earnings on April 28 as a high-interest event. The company is in genuine turnaround mode: OPTAVIA coach count collapsed 40% year-over-year, revenues fell 37% in Q4, and GLP-1 drugs have structurally disrupted the core business. But Chard isn't buying for a broken story — he's buying because he sees either stabilization or a catalyst ahead of the print. The thesis: if Medifast's new GLP-1 Nutrition Support Plan is gaining traction and coach productivity metrics are turning, this stock at $10 doesn't stay at $10 for long. CEO open-market buys at 52-week lows, four weeks before earnings. That's the tape worth reading.

Insider spotlight of the week…#MED

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