Risk Isn’t Gone and Markets Are Still Unprepared | Macro Mondays: March 30, 2026

0:00Andreas Steno:New week.

0:04Big moves. You ready?

0:09Andreas Steno:Andreas on the data, Mikkel on the flow. Turn the headline into trades you can know. From yields to inflation, every chart, every trend. Get the story, get the setup from the open to the end. They try to be as actionable and as honest as possible But keep in mind that their predictions might be Sometimes may be good Sometimes may be shit

0:38Mikkel Rosenvold:Sometimes may be shit

0:46Andreas Steno:It's Macro Mondays, big picture Clear plays, stocks, bonds FX, crypto on the way Get context with strategy right now on your screen. Macro Mondays, level up your week, oh yeah.

1:07Mikkel Rosenvold:Well, hello out there on the top of this absolute banger. This is Macro Mondays from Real Vision. My name is Mikael Rostewald. I'm joined as usual by my co-star of this video, co-singer Andreas. Welcome to the show.

1:20Andreas Steno:It was not me singing, just to be clear.

1:24Mikkel Rosenvold:No, no, no, no, no. That's completely AR8 made by some of the great guys at Real Vision. We really appreciate that. Love this song. We're going to be playing it almost every Monday, I think. Let's see if we get tired of it at some point. But for now, it's great fun. Welcome to Macro Mondays. This is our weekly free show where we give you a sneak peek into all the research that we do at Real Vision. Obviously, we're going to be covering, once again, the Iran War, but also talking about some of the key figures coming out this week and the outlook for various supply chains and markets on top of this.

1:56Mikkel Rosenvold:Iran war. Remember, we have a jam-packed show, but an even more jam-packed week with lots of great stuff where we're keeping you updated on all the macro developments and obviously the Iran war. Andres, you publish your stand-on signals today. And tomorrow at 11 Eastern, we have Raul and Julian. They're monthly shooting the shit. That's available for Alphids here and above. On Wednesday at 2 p.m. Eastern, I'm interviewing Marco Pabic on the Iran war. And on Thursday at 11, Raul and Julian are doing a live Ask Me Anything where you can jump in on the Zoom call if you are a ProTier member. And obviously, Andreas, you and I have our usual publications as well, including the portfolio update towards the end of the week.

2:38Mikkel Rosenvold:So lots of great stuff to look forward to. A lot to talk about, Andreas. We're still in the middle of the Iran war. It's approaching the one-month mark. And this weekend, Andreas, I noticed that we have a new guru in town. People are flocking around. let's get this meme up and running. I don't know if you know who I'm talking about. No one's looking at Pelosi anymore. We have a new guy in town, Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament. He's emerged as the new macro guru, Andreas. Have you bought the Substack yet?

3:15Andreas Steno:I don't think he's launched the paid Substack yet, but he should do so. Maybe he's betting on prediction markets. That could at least be one way of him capitalizing. That's actually very likely, yeah. So having said that, he's called Trump a reverse indicator. Some call him the orange Jim Cramer now, and I'm not sure whether that's fair or not. But having said that, so far today, the opium installed in markets by Trump just before the open bell has sort of fizzled out already. So I think as we've said a few weeks in a row now, time is running out.

3:58Mikkel Rosenvold:It is probably like that with real opium as well. For each of you, you need a little bit more, a little bit more hope. And yeah, Andreas, so we are essentially back to the situation one week ago from being a little harsh here. We had this post on Truth Social from Donald Trump this morning that the United States are still in very serious discussions with a new regime. And if things don't go well, it's not quite clear if this is the same April 6th deadline. They're going to bomb the shit out of them, essentially. So is the market reactions or are the market reactions justifiable out of this, Andreas?

4:36Mikkel Rosenvold:Or is this, as you call it, hopium? Is this just kicking the can down the road from the Trump administration?

4:40Andreas Steno:Yeah, but remember exactly a week ago when we hosted the same show at the same time, we were discussing the exact same thing. And it was last Monday, he started airing the prospects of direct negotiations with the Iranian regime. Here we are a week later. We're still apparently in serious discussions with them. they keep refusing it themselves so i i you know i'll ask you what to think here because as i've said you know i'm very focused on the supply chain ramifications of this and whether we can actually get out of this without damage to the global supply chains i still think there's time but but as i've said time is running out and as you also refer to it's simply not enough to to just say that we're still in negotiation, we're still in negotiation.

5:33Andreas Steno:We simply need something more tangible now.

5:35Mikkel Rosenvold:Yeah, absolutely. At least a picture from negotiations would be nice. Someone shaking hands or being in this conference room with a flex, at least that would be great. This is beginning to look a little shady here. No, I think where we're at, Andreas, and let's be completely honest, neither of us knows what's going to happen here, much less predicting the future here. But what we do know is that some talks or there are some contact at least, and some talks are going to be had. It's very clear that Donald Trump oversold things last Monday. But obviously, we're probably closer to actual talks right now.

6:14Mikkel Rosenvold:And there are some back-channeling going on. What we do know is that as this is going on, meanwhile, the U.S. is conducting a massive military buildup in the Gulf. This weekend, we have the U.S.'s AAA with the 31st Marine Expedition Unit. I've talked a lot about that. They arrived in the Gulf, so the U.S. have a bit more troops now. The 82nd Airborne are deploying as we speak over this coming week, likely. And during April, we're going to see more forces added to that, probably another Marine Expeditionary Unit, and more importantly, another aircraft carrier towards the middle of April. So it's also entirely possible, I have to admit that, that this is simply buying time for the U.S.

6:54Mikkel Rosenvold:to get forces in place for the next phase of the war. That is something that we can't completely rule out, that this is all a show. I still think, personally, I believe they are trying to get a deal. They would like to avoid boots on the ground, but there's also a massive momentum building for finishing the job, killing off Iran once and for all, especially from Israel and that side of things. So, yeah, not a very clear answer. I'm sorry about that, but that is the way I see it, that we have several paths ongoing, and it's still unclear which one Trump is going to choose. So maybe a question back to you, Andres.

7:36Mikkel Rosenvold:Does he have three to four weeks to wait for negotiations, or are the costs beginning to stack for him?

7:45Andreas Steno:So let's start with the oil situation, right? And we lost, say, around 20 million barrels a day when the Strait of Amoo was closed. And, you know, we've had a lot of mitigation efforts undertaken. We obviously see the piped oil to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. We also see this east to west pipeline being fully utilized by the Saudi Arabians now. So they're basically piping the oil to the other side of Saudi Arabia and shipping it out of there. That has added, say, a handful of million of barrels a day. We've also seen this negotiated deal probably by the Pakistani mediators to allow some ships to go through the strait.

8:35Andreas Steno:Trump announced this. It was a day yesterday. And we're talking about eight ships. So as far as I can calculate, we're roughly talking about one and a half million barrels, something like that a day over the coming days. So, you know, they're trying to do their best to mitigate the issue with oil. My concern is that they're not really thinking about all the byproducts. We've talked about helium. We've talked about sulfur, to some extent, net gas as well. It seems like they're very focused on crude oil. and obviously that is also the most important, but these byproducts probably tend to be forgotten in these negotiations.

9:16Andreas Steno:So yes, there's still time, but not a lot. That is the simple answer to this question. From what I can gather from many of my investment bank counterparts here, we're talking about a completely frozen market in risk assets now. All of the long-only managers, they're just sitting on their hands. They're not willing to buy anything. Let me show you a brief flowchart. I think we have it on page 13 or something like that. Yeah, there you go. I mean, we've seen these funds buying energy. That's basically it. And to be honest, I also struggle to find any other good expressions of trade right now. What do you want to trade if you're not trading long energy given this?

10:01Andreas Steno:and the other expressions are basically relative, if you know what I mean. You need to trade relative trades or enter on the short side. And we've been sitting on our hands as well, trying to be patient and allowing Trump to pivot or to find an exit ramp or an off ramp.

10:28Andreas Steno:To be honest, what worries me a little bit is that we see this momentum as well in prediction markets now in favor of boots on the ground, right? Not this month, but for April especially. I think we're talking about 70 % probability being priced in now. And we know that insiders trade this. So it worries me, and I've received a lot of questions on it from my hedge fund counterparts as well. The only thing that comforts me when it comes to this question on boots on the ground, which is in a sense pretty unsettling in itself, is that Trump is not the typical president. He can pivot. He can spin victories.

11:16Andreas Steno:He can create his own narrative if he wants to. In many ways, I would personally consider us being past the point of no return if this was any other president than Trump. but i'm not sure with trump because he's he's able to you know pull the rug from under this whole narrative and then get everyone to accept it and agree uh with it to some extent i'm i'm not sure uh lindsey gariam will will lament it if if if they decide to just stop the war i mean uh with any other president they would probably have accused him of u-turning or whatever but They're not here. So I still think there's hope that he can actually, you know, create a deal.

11:56Andreas Steno:And I cynically base this on the way that he's conducted due politics during the second term. I mean, this is what he's done with Greenland, with tariffs, with everything, right?

12:07Mikkel Rosenvold:Yeah, and he's essentially doing what most of his closest advisors advised him against doing. So can they really criticize him if he then goes back to their advised cause of action? It's, yeah, that is 4G chess maybe at some point, if you can manage to do that. But I agree with you completely. He had such a strong grip on the Republican Party and American politics in general that he can get away with most things. And again, we had a question here from a listener called Gordon Blake, a good question here. If the Iran war drags on, what's the likely effect for U.S. midterms and crypto policy and crypto price action?

12:41Mikkel Rosenvold:If we begin with the midterms here, Andreas, looking at the polls, yes, they're beginning to hurt him a little bit on the approval ratings. The Iran war is not popular, but it's far from disaster territory. If he can get away from this with a seemingly win, maybe do a parade or something, you wouldn't begrudge him that. I think it's going to be okay for the midterms. I think the Americans have lots of other stuff to focus on. Most of the political debate in the U.S., as far as I can see it, we're sitting here in Europe, it's just as focused on the SAFE Act, on voting rights. And I mean, I think in the rest of the world and probably in the Twitter sphere and the investor sphere, we tend to overestimate how much the electorate actually cares about this stuff.

13:27Mikkel Rosenvold:They will begin to care if they deploy 200 ,000 troops there. So if this becomes a forever war, they will begin to care. As long as this is a tip of the spear operation down in the Middle East, yeah, who cares until it either involves several hundred thousand troops or until it hits their wallet in a big way, Andreas. And even so, they are beginning the argument that, OK, this is costing us, what did they say, 50 days of volatility for 50 years of world peace, essentially, which is obviously, yeah, quite the spin. But anyway, they're preparing that. So I wouldn't be yet too concerned. I think there's still a window to handle this when we're talking about the midterms.

14:16Mikkel Rosenvold:Then there's crypto, Andreas, as Gordon talks about here. I've seen all sorts of angles about this being a payment for getting the banks to support the Clarity Act, etc. I don't know about that. But we're seeing quite resilient price action in crypto. So how do you view that market over the past few weeks, Andreas?

14:37Andreas Steno:Yeah, well, it's done better than most peer assets. And I think the simple reason is that crypto has been used as a way out of the region in many ways down there. We saw how Bitcoin was used as a mean of exchange for wealthy families trying to escape some of the capital restrictions in place in Dubai and that region. So in a sense, it's probably overstating it a little bit. It has almost become a blessing in disguise for the crypto market, at least on a relative basis. At some point on Friday, Bitcoin really looked like an asset that was about to puke, but we've stabilized since. So let's see if the damage hasn't been fully done, technically speaking.

15:28Andreas Steno:But it's very difficult to find a technical chart that looks solid right now on the long side. I'll have to admit to that. And if you look at the price action today across the board, we see interest rates down a lot. We see the dollar strengthening. Oil is not down. And risk assets are sort of flattish across the globe. it worries me when interest rates go down while you don't see a weaker dollar while you don't see oil prices coming down because that's the market starting to price in that this will hurt essentially, right? And we probably run some of the most sophisticated now-casting on earth in our company, Nowcast IQ and there is no damage to be seen yet on the growth cycle in the US.

16:21Andreas Steno:Let me just reiterate that. There is damage to be seen on the business cycle in China, in the Eurozone, but not yet in the US. And it is also a story that is gaining momentum in the US. Well, we don't even care about the straightforward moves because we don't use it. um you know that's explicitly been stated by several officials right uh but it is quite fair it is absolutely fair what i just have to remind those people of is that well even though the u.s is a pretty domestic economy compared to other uh economies such as the european for example the max sevens will still struggle and suffer uh a a quarter or two down the road if the consumption comes to a sudden halt outside of the US.

17:10Andreas Steno:So I don't think they're completely isolated from the rest of the world. They're just running with longer lags. And that is in itself slightly worrying because that basically means that you can probably allow this to run for longer without really seeing the damage in the US. But by the end of the day, the damage will be there if the rest of the world slows. So a quick break in your regular programming.

17:34Mikkel Rosenvold:If you're serious about your future, grab my free report called Prepare for 2030. I think you've got five years to make as much money as possible, and this guide will help you navigate what's coming. The link is in the description. Download it now. Okay, Andreas, let's have two interesting listening questions here on both sides of this sort of very binary outcome space that we're looking at. So, Roberta F here says, if you clearly realize there's permanent damage to the business cycle. So that is sort of the pessimist scenario here. What immediate actions would you take in your portfolio in terms of positions, allocations, and or themes?

18:12Andreas Steno:Let me show you one chart on page 10 in relation to that, because we got the first glimpse of the Hormuz inflation today when Germany posted inflation numbers for March. They released the inflation numbers already on the last day of the month. and inflation was up 1.1 %-ish on the month. And we're now close to 3 % year-over-year in Germany from sub 2 % levels. So that basically means that the European Central Bank is back under pressure. We see similar trends elsewhere. And even though the pass-through is much smaller in the US, it's an early warning signal of what you'll see elsewhere. So therefore, if BEEB hits the fan, pardon my French here, we'll probably have to look into the 2021-2022 playbook to find solid hedges in the market.

19:12Andreas Steno:And there is only one solid hedge in the marketplace if inflation goes up and growth goes down. That is energy. and i i've been vocally stating for a long time that energy stocks are the new bonds of a portfolio remember the old 60 40 setup where you had stocks and and fixed income now you need technology and oil basically to put a little bit simply speaking right and you can actually create a very simple strategy since say 2019 and 2020 where you just have a 60 allocation to hyping the u.s risk asset exposures and 40 allocated to energy and then you create a better shop range of portfolio than being no lie they're all right so i think that is the key takeaway here i know it's a pretty vanilla takeaway but it's you know it's the only thing that works uh if if if we continue down this path for say another few months um have i bought 40 percent of energy no um just trying to scan through them i'm probably around 10 15 so i haven't hedged fully uh and i'm probably not attending on doing so until i um i lose patience with trump uh as you said on friday when we hosted our drinks with joe uh you think i'm the only person on earth with a shorter attention than Trump, but I haven't lost patience with him yet.

20:45Andreas Steno:That is my hope now.

20:46Mikkel Rosenvold:That would be preferable for the world economy. Yeah, new target. Cuba has way less spillover effects to the world economy now. No jokes on that. Okay, the flip side of this address. Tom Needs from Dubai here. When the dust eventually settles on the war, hopefully, who stands to benefit the most in markets? So this is an interesting question because when this war ends, what are the same stocks going to be working that worked before this or have some sectors taken or some areas taking permanent damage from this you think

21:20Andreas Steno:um i i don't think we've seen permanent damage to for example the ai supply chains yet and there's still time to to recover those supply chains even with a lack of helium exports from Qatar, I made this simple study on the semiconductor exports from Taiwan and Korea to the US and their typical relationship with semiconductor stocks. And had it not been for this war, my best assumption is that semiconductor stocks would have been up in between, say, 25 and 50 percent in March. that much because we've seen a tremendous momentum in uh semiconductor exports the whole asian business cycle through march still i mean it's still working live because there there obviously lags uh from a block straight of a moose until you actually see that in the supply chains so should we get a recovery there and you know an immediately better medium-term outlook for the whole helium supply chain of semiconductors, oh boy, a recovery we'll have in that space.