In partnership with
THE BRRR’s BOTTOM LINE
Editor’s Note: We created thebrrr.com. It’s got a Strait of Hormuz live tracker, live trade signals for 12 assets, a momentum scanner for top-performing assets, and much more. Let us know what you think!
Oil touched $120 this morning before the G7 talked it back to $95. Let that sink in — a $25 swing in crude in a single session. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for a week, Kuwait is cutting output "precautionarily," and the G7's big move was... saying there's "no immediate supply shortfall." Confidence inspiring.
Goldman put numbers on what everyone's feeling: every 1% drop in GDP growth could shave 4% off S&P 500 earnings. With oil up 50% in weeks, the "disinflation" narrative that powered the first two months of 2026 is dead. Welcome to stagflation watch. The Fed gets CPI on Wednesday and PCE on Friday — both of which were measured before oil went vertical. Imagine the March prints.
Meanwhile, bitcoin is doing something nobody expected: outperforming everything. Up 4.5% today while stocks bleed, gold stalls, and the dollar strengthens. Funding rates are negative, shorts are crowded, and the Coinbase premium is back — institutional money is quietly buying the fear. BTC has climbed 3.5% since the war began while gold has fallen 5%. The "digital gold" thesis isn't a meme anymore. It's happening in real time.
And in AI land, Anthropic is suing the Pentagon, OpenAI's robotics lead just resigned over a DoD deal, and Nvidia killed its China H200 production. The AI arms race just became a literal arms race. Fun times.
88% resolved. 22% stayed loyal. What went wrong?
That's the AI paradox hiding in your CX stack. Tickets close. Customers leave. And most teams don't see it coming because they're measuring the wrong things.
Efficiency metrics look great on paper. Handle time down. Containment rate up. But customer loyalty? That's a different story — and it's one your current dashboards probably aren't telling you.
Gladly's 2026 Customer Expectations Report surveyed thousands of real consumers to find out exactly where AI-powered service breaks trust, and what separates the platforms that drive retention from the ones that quietly erode it.
If you're architecting the CX stack, this is the data you need to build it right. Not just fast. Not just cheap. Built to last.
MACRO
Oil's $25 intraday swing dominated a session that's now pricing in stagflation, not soft landing.
SPX: 6,719 (−0.28%) | DXY: 99.06 (−0.49%) | 10Y: 4.117% | Gold: $5,114 (+0.59%) | Oil: $94.87 (−12.18%)
G7 Blinks on Reserves: Finance ministers met, discussed releasing emergency oil stockpiles, then decided... not to. Their reasoning: "no immediate supply shortfall." This after Brent touched $120 and the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for a week. Kuwait cut output preemptively. Japan's refiners — who get 95% of crude from the Gulf — are begging their government to tap strategic reserves.
Goldman's Earnings Guillotine: Goldman Sachs warned that a prolonged oil disruption is now the single biggest threat to U.S. corporate earnings in 2026. Their math: every 1 percentage point GDP drag could cut S&P 500 EPS by 4%. Travel stocks got mauled — airlines down 2.6%, Carnival −4.3%. Banks also hit hard with Citi −3% and Morgan Stanley −2.3%.
Inflation Data Gauntlet: CPI Wednesday, PCE Friday, both covering data before the oil spike. DB expects core CPI at +0.24% m/m (down from 0.30%) and core PCE at +0.42% (up to 3.1% y/y). These will be the last clean prints — March data will capture the full energy shock. Fed is in blackout ahead of March 18 FOMC.
TECH
AI's military moment: Anthropic sues the Pentagon, OpenAI's robotics lead walks, and Nvidia abandons China chips.
NVDA: $179.82 (+1.20%) | META: $636.05 (−1.36%) | NASDAQ: 22,399 (+0.08%)
AI vs. The Pentagon: Anthropic is suing the Defense Department after being designated a "supply chain risk" — essentially blacklisted from government contracts for refusing to remove AI guardrails around mass surveillance. Meanwhile, OpenAI signed a DoD deal and promptly lost its robotics hardware lead, Caitlin Kalinowski, who resigned in protest. Claude just passed ChatGPT in App Store rankings the day after the ban. The market is picking sides.
Nvidia Cuts China Off: Nvidia has stopped producing H200 chips destined for China, no longer expecting significant sales there. The export control wall is now fully operational. Meanwhile, chip stocks rebounded today — Broadcom and SanDisk led tech higher as the sector bounced from February's selloff, acting as a counterweight to the oil-driven selling.
Novo + Hims = GLP-1 Everywhere: Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers are expected to announce a partnership for Novo to sell its weight-loss drugs directly on the Hims platform. This is the GLP-1 distribution play everyone's been waiting for — direct-to-consumer pharma through a telehealth app. Hims is the consumer brand; Novo is the molecule. Together: a distribution moat.
CRYPTO
Bitcoin is outperforming every traditional asset since the war began. The digital gold thesis is being stress-tested — and passing.
BTC: $68,985 (+4.54%) | ETH: $2,029 (+4.71%) | SOL: $85.10 (+4.22%) | F&G: 8 (Extreme Fear)
War-Proof Rally: BTC has gained 3.5% since the Iran conflict began while gold dropped 5%, silver fell 12%, the S&P lost 1.5%, and the Nasdaq shed 1%. That's not correlation — that's decorrelation. In a world where traditional safe havens are failing (gold sold off on dollar strength, bonds losing value on inflation fears), bitcoin is doing exactly what its maximalists always said it would.
Shorts Getting Squeezed: Funding rates are negative at −3.5%, meaning short sellers are paying longs — bearish positioning is crowded. Open interest in coin-margined futures is declining as leverage flushes out. The Coinbase premium is back, signaling U.S. institutional buying. This is the textbook setup for a squeeze: maximum pessimism in sentiment (F&G at 8) while price rips higher.
The 23-Month Bottom Signal: Bitcoin's 23-month cycle — which has never failed historically — is flashing a bottom signal. After nearly halving from its $126K all-time high to $60K, BTC is now testing whether the same pattern that called the 2022 and 2018 bottoms holds again. If $65K-$66K holds as support, the cycle says the next leg up targets new highs.
GEOPOLITICS
Day 10 of the Iran war. New supreme leader, Hormuz still closed, and the G7 is out of ideas.
Oil: $94.87 (−12.18%) | Brent: ~$98 | Gas: $3.25/gal (+$0.27/wk)
Iran Names Hardliner Successor: Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ali Khamenei, has been named Iran's new Supreme Leader. This signals hardliner consolidation — not moderation. The appointment came after Israeli strikes hit at least five energy sites in and around Tehran, which Axios reported "frustrated" U.S. officials. The 7th U.S. casualty has been confirmed. Escalation, not de-escalation.
Hormuz Remains Choked: The Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of global oil and seaborne gas flows — has been effectively closed for a week. Kuwait cut production preemptively. Japan's refiners (95% Gulf-dependent) are requesting emergency stockpile access. European real estate is the worst-performing sector as yields climb on energy inflation. The ECB is now pricing in two rate hikes in 2026, having priced zero before the war.
China Plays Peacemaker: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China and the U.S. could make 2026 a "landmark year" for bilateral relations. The timing isn't accidental — with oil supply disrupted and energy markets in chaos, China's leverage as both the world's largest oil importer and a potential diplomatic broker is at its highest point in years.
ECONOMIC CALENDAR
Tue Mar 10 — JOLTS Job Openings (10AM)
Wed Mar 11 — CPI (8:30AM) — Critical: oil-driven inflation expectations make this the most important CPI in months | Crude Inventories (10:30AM)
Thu Mar 12 — Initial Jobless Claims (8:30AM) | PPI (8:30AM)
Fri Mar 13 — Michigan Sentiment (10AM) — Watch inflation expectations component
Tue Mar 17-18 — FOMC Decision ⚡ (Fed Blackout in effect)
How was today's email?
Got feedback? Follow the writer on Twitter @frank_locascio and send a message.
The BRRR is meant for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor before making any investment decisions.
