The Weekend Wall Street Missed: Hormuz, a Jobs Blowout, and the Fed
★ ELITE MARKET POINT
Market Intelligence That Moves With You
Oil, Jobs & The Fed
Wall Street Closed for Labor Day. The Case for a Hike Got Stronger.
The oil shock and the jobs blowout look like opposite stories. They feed the same machine.
US markets are dark today. Asia already voted. You reopen Tuesday into a weekend of war at sea, a hot labor print, and a Fed nine days out.
Key Idea
Two forces moved against you this weekend. A shooting war in the Strait of Hormuz pushed oil toward $92. A blowout jobs report handed the Fed fresh room to raise rates. They look unrelated. They are the same trade. Both push inflation and yields higher. Both make a September 16 rate hike easier to justify. The market that prices all of it was closed. You meet the bill Tuesday.
Our Partners
Editor’s Note: Barron’s ranked Larry Benedict’s former hedge fund among the top 1% in the world. He went 20 straight years without a losing year and generated $274 million for his clients. Now he’s revealing the one ticker he believes could benefit most as Trump reshapes the Fed. Click here to see it, or read more below.
On Wednesday, September 16, Trump’s new Federal Reserve will announce its next interest-rate decision.
And one overlooked ticker could begin moving before most investors understand why.
That’s why legendary trader Larry Benedict says the time to see this ticker is now…
Not after the decision hits the financial news.
See the ticker Larry is watching before September 16.
In January 2022, Larry positioned his readers ahead of a major Fed announcement.
In under a month, they had the chance to make 117%.
Following another Fed announcement, Larry handed readers the opportunity to make 89% in just 17 days.
Now he believes the September 16 decision could trigger another string of opportunities.
Because the Fed won’t only announce what it is doing with interest rates.
It will also release fresh projections that could change expectations across the entire market.
When that happens, billions of dollars could start moving within minutes.
And Larry believes one ticker sits directly in its path.
Discover why Larry is watching this one ticker.
Larry has recorded a short briefing revealing the ticker completely free…
Along with what he believes could happen when Trump’s Fed makes its move.
But timing matters.
By the time the newspapers explain what happened on September 16, the opportunity could already be passing.
Get Larry’s ticker before the Fed decision.
Regards,
Lauren Wingfield
Managing Editor, The Opportunistic Trader
And one overlooked ticker could begin moving before most investors understand why.
That’s why legendary trader Larry Benedict says the time to see this ticker is now…
Not after the decision hits the financial news.
See the ticker Larry is watching before September 16.
In January 2022, Larry positioned his readers ahead of a major Fed announcement.
In under a month, they had the chance to make 117%.
Following another Fed announcement, Larry handed readers the opportunity to make 89% in just 17 days.
Now he believes the September 16 decision could trigger another string of opportunities.
Because the Fed won’t only announce what it is doing with interest rates.
It will also release fresh projections that could change expectations across the entire market.
When that happens, billions of dollars could start moving within minutes.
And Larry believes one ticker sits directly in its path.
Discover why Larry is watching this one ticker.
Larry has recorded a short briefing revealing the ticker completely free…
Along with what he believes could happen when Trump’s Fed makes its move.
But timing matters.
By the time the newspapers explain what happened on September 16, the opportunity could already be passing.
Get Larry’s ticker before the Fed decision.
Regards,
Lauren Wingfield
Managing Editor, The Opportunistic Trader
The Strait, Over The Weekend
US forces destroyed or disabled three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday. CENTCOM said they funded Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. That’s US Central Command, the military body running the campaign. Iran struck back, hitting three tankers on an unauthorized route and several US-linked ships. This is the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes through it.
Oil answered. Brent traded near $97. WTI, the US benchmark, sat near $92. Every prior flare-up this year got absorbed inside a single session. We told you the strait decides what you pay at the pump. This time the fighting ran across a closed-market weekend.
Watch whether Iran moves from tanker tit-for-tat to mining the channel. That is the line between a premium and a spike.
Oil answered. Brent traded near $97. WTI, the US benchmark, sat near $92. Every prior flare-up this year got absorbed inside a single session. We told you the strait decides what you pay at the pump. This time the fighting ran across a closed-market weekend.
Watch whether Iran moves from tanker tit-for-tat to mining the channel. That is the line between a premium and a spike.
Friday’s 162,000
The August jobs report landed Friday at 8:30 AM. Nonfarm payrolls rose 162,000. That’s the count of jobs added outside farming. Economists expected about 53,000. The economy delivered three times that. Unemployment held at 4.1%.
Normally you cheer a number like this. Not now. A hot labor market hands the Fed room to raise rates. That’s the Federal Reserve, which sets the price of money. Chair Kevin Warsh has called inflation the priority. By the opening bell, good news had become a selloff. The Dow shed 272 points. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed back toward 4.8%. That’s the rate that steers your mortgage. It last sat this high in 2023.
A quarter-point hike on September 16 is back on the table. Read that again.
Normally you cheer a number like this. Not now. A hot labor market hands the Fed room to raise rates. That’s the Federal Reserve, which sets the price of money. Chair Kevin Warsh has called inflation the priority. By the opening bell, good news had become a selloff. The Dow shed 272 points. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed back toward 4.8%. That’s the rate that steers your mortgage. It last sat this high in 2023.
A quarter-point hike on September 16 is back on the table. Read that again.
What Reopens Tuesday
US markets are closed today for Labor Day. The rest of the world traded anyway. Tokyo rose. Seoul jumped more than 3%.
Sit with that. Asia looked at a shooting war over the world’s oil chokepoint and bought stocks. The selling, if it comes, waits for you. Every headline from this weekend compounds into one number: Tuesday’s open. And it lands in the thinnest trading of the calendar, the day after a holiday.
Two dates now own your month. CPI Friday, September 11. The Fed the following Wednesday. CPI is the inflation scorecard. It is the last one before the decision.
Sit with that. Asia looked at a shooting war over the world’s oil chokepoint and bought stocks. The selling, if it comes, waits for you. Every headline from this weekend compounds into one number: Tuesday’s open. And it lands in the thinnest trading of the calendar, the day after a holiday.
Two dates now own your month. CPI Friday, September 11. The Fed the following Wednesday. CPI is the inflation scorecard. It is the last one before the decision.
The Hedge That Isn’t
Here’s where it gets interesting. War usually sends money into Treasuries. Investors want safety, bonds rally, yields fall. Not this war. Higher oil means higher inflation. Higher inflation means a Fed that hikes. So the classic safe haven becomes the casualty. Bonds sold off into the fighting instead of rallying. That is not a contradiction. That is a signal. The thing that normally protects you this weekend was the thing losing value. If you hold a long-term bond fund like TLT, you felt it. That’s the fund that tracks 20-year Treasuries. It falls when yields rise.
Three Ways Tuesday Breaks
Base
Stocks gap lower at Tuesday’s open, then steady. Energy leads. Own XLE, the energy-sector fund, plus the oil majors Exxon and Chevron. Defense catches a bid: Lockheed Martin and RTX, the two big weapons makers. Rate-sensitive megacaps like Apple and Microsoft stay heavy while the 10-year sits near 4.8%. Trim them into any bounce. Park the proceeds in SGOV, a T-bill fund paying roughly 3.7%. Keep that dry powder for Friday.
Upside
CPI cools on Friday. Watch the core reading. That strips out food and fuel. It eases even with oil high. Rate-hike odds fade fast. The 10-year backs off 4.8%, and the names that hate high rates rip. Buy the relief in QQQ, the Nasdaq-100 fund, and small caps through IWM. The Russell 2000 held green on Friday. Tech leads the bounce.
Risk
Iran escalates from tankers to mining the strait. Brent pushes past $100. CPI runs hot Friday. A September 16 hike hardens into near-certainty. The 10-year breaks decisively above 4.8%. Growth takes the hit: expect a 3% to 5% Nasdaq pullback over the week, more if oil spikes. Long bonds via TLT fall further. Here is what is different this time. Prior flare-ups reversed inside a day. This one compounded over a closed weekend and reopens into thin liquidity. But Iran has threatened to shut Hormuz before and never fully has. Size a hedge. Do not panic-sell.
Our View
We have said since May that one waterway sets the tone for your whole portfolio. This weekend proved it again, and added a second driver. The jobs report and the war now pull the same rope. Both argue for higher rates. That is the shift. For most of the summer, the war meant fear and the data meant weakness. Today strength and fear point the same way: toward the Fed. Your move is not to guess Tuesday’s gap. It is to prepare for it before markets reopen. Barbell it. Energy and defense on one side for the oil premium. T-bills and cash on the other for the rate risk. Keep your core, trim the rate-sensitive edges, and let Friday’s CPI tell you whether to add tech back. You have the holiday off. The clock that prices your money does not. See you before the bell Tuesday.