April 17, 2026

Markets:

U.S. stock futures ticked higher Friday after President Donald Trump said that the Iran war “should be ending pretty soon.”

Trump made the remarks at an event in Las Vegas on Thursday and described the conflict as “going along swimmingly.” His remarks came hours after he announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire.

The latest developments build on Trump’s remarks from earlier this week that the Middle East conflict is “very close to over” and that Tehran wants to “make a deal very badly.”

Hopes of a peace deal have propelled stocks higher in recent days, with the three major averages all pacing for a solidly positive week. The blue-chip Dow has added 1.4%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have risen 3.3% and 5.2%, respectively.

Asia-Pacific markets opened lower Friday, breaking ranks with Wall Street’s record-setting rally overnight, as investors assessed cooling Middle East tensions.

Portfolio:

We head into the final trading session of a strong week holding setups in MSFU, STM, and AMPX.

The queue is starting to heat up and it would not be surprising to see new trades trigger over the next few sessions.

There has been a lot of talk lately that this recovery is too fast and overbought. That usually comes from the same crowd that has been calling for market tops and corrections for the past 18 months and missed most of the move. The pain trade higher is very real. Just wait until they start chasing. That phase of this rally has not even started yet but it is coming.

Now on the overbought argument.

The issue with that thinking is when you get sharp downside corrections followed by fast V shaped recoveries, those moves tend to be explosive and relentless. They often go much further than most participants think is possible.

Look at late February into early April 2025 during the Trump tariff selloff. The Nasdaq dropped more than 20 percent in about six weeks. What followed was a powerful V shaped move that ripped higher and kept going, climbing more than 50 percent over the next several months with very little pause.

That is how these environments behave.

We continue to believe an epic summer is setting up. The next few months have all the ingredients for a very powerful run and one of the most profitable stretches we have seen in years. Even the President has alluded to this, calling for much higher markets both during the tariff pressure and again now during the Iran situation.  He's told us to buy a few times now since he has taken office…he has yet to be wrong on those buys.

Be ready today.