Wall Street strategists warn not to bet on Trump rescuing stocks rattled by Iran war
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
News from US President Donald Trump's speech displayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 2.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
NEW YORK - As US stocks began paring back their deepest losses on March 3, it looked as if traders were again starting to bet that President Donald Trump would find a way to contain the fallout from another crisis he unleashed.
But Wall Street strategists are warning against relying on a so-called “Trump put” when it comes to the Iran war.
“It goes back to the classic phrase about war, which is it has a momentum of its own once it starts,” said chief investment officer Bob Elliott from investment firm Unlimited. “The ability to influence and respond to pain that exists in the markets isn’t necessarily as easy as it was during Liberation Day, where basically President Trump had full control over what the policy choices were.”
The US-Israeli attack on Iran
There is also no clear sense of when or how it will end, raising the prospect of prolonged conflict and unforeseen consequences beyond the White House’s control.
That makes the Iran war different from Mr Trump’s trade war, his talk of invading Greenland or his assault on the US Federal Reserve’s independence, all of which unnerved investors in the US and abroad.
In each case, traders came to expect that Mr Trump would backtrack if financial markets fell too far, a strategy that came to be known as the Taco trade – which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out – and created a buy-the-dip mentality that allowed stocks to rally back.
That instinct may have softened the initial reaction in the US, where stocks and bonds have tumbled far less than they have overseas.
During the last two days, stocks opened sharply lower but clawed back the losses as the trading day wore on. On March 3, the S&P 500 ended down 0.9 per cent, after dropping as much as 2.5 per cent earlier.
“As with every other time we sold off, after the first dip buyers stepped in at a logical support point, Fomo-driven (fear of missing out) traders pushed the nascent bounce higher,” said Interactive Brokers chief strategist Steve Sosnick.
Mr Trump on March 3 said the US would provide insurance guarantees and naval escorts for oil tankers and other vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to head off a potential energy crisis caused by the conflict.
But shipowners and analysts were uncertain that military escorts and insurance backstopping would be enough to stop rising prices.
The sharp jump in oil is threatening to exacerbate US inflation and has cast doubt on whether the Fed will resume interest rate cuts.
In recent weeks, stocks were already being dragged down by fears about the impacts of artificial intelligence, pockets of distress in credit markets and slowing jobs growth.
Baird investment strategist Ross Mayfield said the risk of extensive damage to oil infrastructure in the Middle East could prolong the impacts of the war, regardless of how quickly it ends.
The Trump administration has indicated that the bombing campaign may last for weeks, but has not given a clear explanation of what would end the conflict.
For the moment, analysts say that the market reaction has not been deep enough to sow significant worry in Washington, as it did in April 2025, when a broad meltdown drove Mr Trump to temporarily halt his tariffs.
Dr Matt Gertken, chief geopolitical and US political strategist at BCA Research, said it would take the risk of a “market-induced recession” – or a stock drop of some 10 per cent to 15 per cent – to put significant pressure on the White House.
Natixis head of US rates John Briggs agreed. He said it would take a move higher in bond yields that is “disruptive and spills into credit and equity markets” to prod Mr Trump to try to extricate himself from the conflict.
Yet despite what Mr Trump does, stocks may largely be at the mercy of how the conflict affects oil prices.
Equities have tended to rise during Middle East conflicts in the past as long as crude prices did not surge 75 per cent or more from the year before, according to Morgan Stanley chief investment officer and chief US equity strategist Mike Wilson.
At RBC Capital Markets, Ms Lori Calvasina said investors should be wary of historical precedents showing that buying stocks after downturns triggered by geopolitical events tends to pay off.
The evidence for equity rebounds does not always reflect the risks around wider wars, she warned. “This experience, along with 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and the US experienced a major post-Covid-19 inflation spike, reminds us that it is very difficult to look at geopolitical events in isolation when it comes to the stock market.”
Globalt Investments’ senior portfolio manager Keith Buchanan said the Iran war carries similar risks to the US as those brought on by the Russia-Ukraine war, which pushed energy prices higher, fuelled inflation and contributed to the 2022 stock market slide as the Fed hiked interest rates.
Moreover, he said Mr Trump does not “control the off switch”.
“There are other very powerful parties involved,” Mr Buchanan said. “This is deeper and more longstanding than other situations.” BLOOMBERG
