Six Forces That Actually Drove Markets This Week

The week looked resolved for two days. Then it wasn't.

Monday and Tuesday brought the strongest rally since November. The Dow gained more than 3% in two sessions. Oil pulled back. Yields fell. Traders bought the idea the war was ending.

Then Trump spoke Wednesday night.

He said the U.S. would hit Iran extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. He gave no plan for reopening the Strait. He said it would open on its own when the war ends.

Oil jumped 11% on Thursday, its biggest single-day gain since May 2020. The Dow fell more than 600 points at the open before recovering. The week still finished up 2% to 3% across all three indexes, the best since November, snapping a five-week losing streak.

This was a week where price moved on headlines, but direction stayed anchored to oil.

Six forces explain what actually happened.

When crypto’s next move hits… will you be positioned—or watching from the sidelines?

Bitcoin just had its strongest week since the last peak.

Macro conditions are shifting.

This is the moment most investors hesitate… and miss it.

The difference is preparation.

Get the Crypto Revolution guide + our #1 coin pick here.

© 2026 Boardwalk Flock LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2382 Camino Vida Roble, Suite I Carlsbad, CA 92011, United States. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Readers acknowledge that the authors are not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical, or professional advice. The reader agrees that under no circumstances Boardwalk Flock, LLC is responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a result of the use of the information contained within this, including, but not limited to, errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. Results may not be typical and may vary from person to person. Making money trading digital currencies takes time and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk.

Markets had priced a ceasefire. Trump delivered escalation.

His Wednesday night address removed the core assumption behind two days of gains. He gave no timeline. No path to reopen the Strait. Only more strikes.

Deutsche Bank said the speech delivered little that was new. Societe Generale wrote that no exit plan means no credible path to reopening the world's most important oil corridor.

The market had its answer. Oil surged. Futures fell sharply overnight. The week's gains held only because Iranian state media reported that Iran and Oman were drafting a protocol to monitor Strait traffic. That headline briefly turned indexes positive before they faded.

The pattern is now five weeks old. Monday brings relief. Thursday brings repricing. The week ends near where it started.

Investor Signal 

The market is trading hope and pricing reality in the same week, every week. That cycle breaks when the Strait opens. Not before.

Oil spiked 11% on Thursday. But the bigger story was not Trump.

Ukraine struck Russia's Primorsk Baltic terminal the same day. At least 40% of its storage capacity was destroyed. Separate attacks forced Ust-Luga to suspend loading. Three industry sources told Reuters that Russian output cuts are now unavoidable. About 20% of Russia's total export capacity went offline in a single session.

Russia was the last major backup supply source. It is no longer.

UBS now sees Brent crude potentially rising above $150 in April. JPMorgan estimates markets are pricing roughly 11 million barrels per day of lost supply. The actual deficit is closer to 14 million. The gap means oil moves higher.

The emergency reserve releases that helped offset the shock are expected to run out within two weeks. When they run out, the deficit roughly doubles without any new escalation.

Investor Signal 

This is not one supply shock. It is two overlapping ones. When the reserve buffer runs out, the market prices the gap on its own.

The CEO of this AI company (click here to get the name, 100% free) just issued a CODE RED in an internal memo…

Warning his employees that they’re dealing with a critical situation.

Another company executive even implied they might need a government bailout.

And now Jim Rickards is predicting this company is about to go bust, in a full-blown AI meltdown that could be 10 times bigger than Lehman Brothers. 

Click here to see the details and learn how to prepare.

Monday gave investors the best of both worlds. For one session.

Powell spoke at Harvard without a script. He said the Fed can look past an energy shock. Hiking into higher oil prices would slow growth without fixing supply. Rate hike odds collapsed from about 50% to near 5% in a single afternoon. Yields fell. Bitcoin caught a tailwind.

Then Trump posted that he would target Iran's oil infrastructure if talks failed. Brent pushed toward $116.

By Thursday, the week had come full circle. Trump's speech removed the exit plan. Oil surged. Bond yields climbed back. The dollar strengthened.

Dallas Fed President Logan said it clearly. U.S. oil producers need sustained high prices for months before new drilling begins. Supply offers no quick relief either.

Friday's jobs report landed into closed equity markets and complicated the picture further. The economy added 178,000 jobs in March against a consensus of 59,000. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%. The headline was stronger than almost anyone expected. But the wage number told a quieter story. Average hourly earnings rose only 0.2% for the month and 3.5% from a year ago, both below estimates. 

Stronger jobs with softer wages is the one combination that gives the Fed a little room. It shows the labor market is holding without embedding inflation. Bond yields rose slightly on the number. Equity markets were closed.

Investor Signal 

Powell gave markets a rate reprieve. Trump kept the geopolitical risk. Oil still decides which one matters more each session.

This is five weeks in a row.

Bitcoin dropped roughly 2% after Trump's speech. Ethereum fell 4%. But bitcoin did not break. It held near $66,000 through oil at $113, three failed Treasury auctions, and a week of headline swings that sent other assets moving far more sharply.

JPMorgan published a client note making a direct comparison. Bitcoin is up roughly 3.9% since the war began. The Nasdaq is down more than 10% over the same period. Gold is down 13% in March alone.

JPMorgan is not a crypto firm. It is the largest bank in the United States. It made that comparison in a note to clients during an active war. That is a different signal than anything coming from inside crypto.

The mechanism is visible. Citizens in Iran moved funds into self-custody wallets after strikes began. Bitcoin moves across borders without requiring a shipping lane, a bank account, or a stable currency.

Investor Signal

Bitcoin's relative strength is no longer just a narrative. JPMorgan put numbers on it in a client note. That is a step change from where the safe haven argument was six weeks ago.

When SpaceX goes public, it could hit a $1.5 TRILLION valuation - that would be 3,000 times bigger than Amazon's IPO.

Most investors will be locked out until AFTER the big announcement.

But I've discovered a "backdoor" that lets you grab a pre-IPO stake in SpaceX right now.

I'm revealing the ticker for free.

Click Here for Your FREE "SpaceX" Ticker

This was the quietest theme of the week. It may be the most durable.

Coinbase received conditional approval from the OCC to operate as a federal trust bank. The approval replaces 50 different state frameworks with one and opens a path into payments that could compete with PayPal and Square.

Circle launched cirBTC, a wrapped bitcoin token backed 1:1 by actual BTC. It is designed for institutional desks and lending markets as a neutral alternative to existing wrapped products.

Square auto-enabled bitcoin payments for millions of U.S. small businesses. Transactions convert instantly to dollars. Merchants take no price exposure.

A Bitcoin Policy Institute paper argued that reserve assets now need a fourth test: can the asset be moved when shipping lanes are blocked or custody becomes political? Gold can be stranded. Dollar reserves can be frozen. Bitcoin stays portable.

None of these moved price this week. All of them shape the next cycle.

Investor Signal 

The ceiling is still oil. The floor is still getting stronger. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

Blue Owl disclosed that investors asked to withdraw $5.4 billion from its two largest private credit funds in Q1.

That was 22% of one fund and 41% of another. The firm capped actual redemptions at 5%. The structure held. The pressure did not.

Blue Owl's stock is down more than 40% this year. Saba Capital is offering to buy stranded shareholders out at 65% to 80% of NAV.

The timing detail matters most. Q1 inflow data only ran through early March. The war began February 28. Q2 data will be the first full quarter of investor behavior after the war started and after gating was announced. That is when the real picture shows.

The U.S. Treasury is preparing meetings with insurance regulators about private credit exposure inside retirement portfolios. That is the first time Washington has named this as a potential system concern.

Investor Signal 

This is still the liquidity stage. Gating and widening spreads come before defaults. The Q2 inflow data is the first real test of whether the pressure is stabilizing or building.

Google, OpenAI and Bezos say this AI breakthrough is a decade away…

Jeff Brown says Musk could announce it as soon as April 24, and kickstart a massive 106X market boom.

Click Here To See How To Play This While There's Still Time

Trump's speech ended the rally. Russia's Baltic disruption added a second supply shock on top of Hormuz. The reserve buffer has about two weeks left. Powell gave markets a rate reprieve that lasted one session before escalation language took it back. Friday's jobs report added one more layer: 178,000 jobs, soft wages, and no equity market to price it.

Through all of it, bitcoin held. JPMorgan made the comparison in writing. Coinbase got a bank charter. Square embedded bitcoin into millions of businesses. The reserve asset debate shifted toward mobility under stress.

The war repriced energy. The infrastructure built around crypto this week matters when the energy shock eases.

Oil is still the ceiling. The structure underneath keeps improving.