By Sam Goldfarb
The sun was rising early Monday on another bleak day for markets. Oil prices were climbing. Stock futures were sliding. A rout in government bonds was showing no signs of abating. Then President Trump took to social media.
A little after 7 a.m. ET, he posted that the U.S. military would postpone strikes on Iranian power plants. The reason: "productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities."
The reversal was immediate and stark. Stock futures surged into the green, swinging a decline of almost 1% into a climb briefly exceeding 2.5%. Oil futures dropped precipitously, with Brent, the global gauge, falling from above $112 a barrel to below $100 in seconds. Bonds rallied.
Even after Iran denied talks, the tone was set. Investors cheered the efforts to end a war that has sparked the largest oil shock on record, while threatening to fuel inflation and slow global growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 posted their biggest one-day gains since early February, with the Dow industrials rising 1.4% and the S&P advancing 1.1%. The Nasdaq composite added 1.4%.
Brent ended the session down 11%, just below $100 a barrel, its lowest level since March 11.
"A little bit of light, or a little bit of good news, can go a long way, " said Keith Lerner, chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services. "Before this weekend, a lot of people were thinking about worst-case scenarios."
Instead, Monday morning found them racing to shift their expectations. Dennis Dick saw the sudden jump in stocks and reflexively hit the red "Cancel All" button on his trading screen, instantly pulling all of his standing orders for stocks like Nvidia and Microsoft. Only around 10 seconds later did he grasp that the move stemmed from Trump's Truth Social post on Iran.
Dick, the Toronto-based founder of Triple D Trading, is a small-time market maker in S&P 500 stocks before the opening bell. That means he posts both buy and sell orders, and earns a profit by capturing a spread between the buying and selling price. During large market moves, he rushes to cancel his orders to avoid having them executed at a bad price.
Sometimes months go by and he doesn't need to press "Cancel All," but during the recent war-fueled volatility, he has been hitting the button several times a day.
"It's headline after headline after headline," he said. "You can't take a coffee break. If you do, you've got to take your cellphone with you."
United Airlines, hammered last week by the prospect of climbing energy costs, added more than $1.2 billion in market value. Cruise operators Carnival and Royal Caribbean jumped more than 5%.
Some investors remained less optimistic. Trump has tried repeatedly to reassure markets on social media throughout the war. A rapidly deleted post from Energy Secretary Chris White touting naval escorts for tankers shaved as much as 19% from oil prices in one 10-minute span during a session earlier this month. Prices quickly rebounded.
Pierre Andurand, French founder of a commodities hedge fund named after him, says he thought all along Trump's weekend threat to blow up Iranian power plants was a negotiating tactic. He was so confident that he flew into Dubai over the weekend, and was working from home in the emirate Monday when Trump's Truth Social post landed.
Andurand -- a prolific social-media user himself -- first scoured X to try to find more information about the U.S. position and Iran's response. He called up team members and got them to tap their oil-market contacts to figure out if the market slide made any sense. His conclusion: No. "Nothing has changed," Andurand said. "I'm surprised why everyone reacted."
Andurand noted that it is still unclear when normal shipping will resume through the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway for oil and other commodities that Iran has effectively shut down in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli attacks that started almost a month ago.
For investors, a big question is how much the Iran war can be compared to last year's tariff drama, when the S&P 500 plunged 12% after Trump announced sweeping levies in April only to then rally 37% through the end of the year after he walked back some of those policies -- a shift also announced on social media.
Trump's propensity to pivot when markets get rattled has inspired what some have derisively called the "TACO" trade for "Trump Always Chickens Out." Effectively, this has meant holding on to riskier assets when Trump pursues policies that could hurt the economy, betting he will eventually reverse or soften those positions.
Even before Monday's rally, the S&P 500 was down only 5% in 2026, after logging double-digit gains in each of the previous three years. Many investors believe that there is extra pressure on Trump now, given the coming midterm elections in November and his promises to tackle inflation.
Still, analysts note that the current market turmoil could be harder to resolve than some others in recent years. Trump, in this case, can't simply dictate events on his own but will instead likely need Iran's cooperation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"It's not a one-sided gambit where Trump announces 50% tariffs, then he says, nevermind, they're 20," said John Briggs, head of U.S. rates strategy at Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking.
Trump's early morning comments nonetheless sent shock waves through markets.
Michael Lorizio, head of U.S. rates and mortgage trading at Manulife Investment Management, was easing into his day, placing trades from home, when Trump's comments were posted, forcing him to reach out to his portfolio-manager colleagues to see how their plans had changed.
Trading for the next hour or so became much more difficult than normal, particularly for bonds that don't usually trade as often, such as inflation-protected Treasurys. In some cases, Wall Street banks shut off electronic systems that offer instantaneous quotes to investors looking to buy or sell bonds. Yields, which fall when bond prices rise, plunged, particularly on short-term Treasurys.
"There was a lot that changed in a pretty unprecedented manner right at that time," Lorizio said.
Write to Sam Goldfarb at sam.goldfarb@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
Chris Wright is the U.S. energy secretary. "Stocks Were Headed for a Red Monday. Then Trump Took to Social Media," at 5 p.m. ET March 23 incorrectly identified him as Chris White.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 10:20 ET (14:20 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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