Jack Phillips

Macro Intelligence for Investors | Former Naval Intelligence Officer | Market Compass monthly → | Boulder, CO | NFA

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

The US started blockading Iranian ports this morning. CENTCOM: all ships entering or exiting Iranian ports will be stopped, regardless of flag.
Two competing blockades now operate in the same 21-mile waterway. Iran admits it's lost track of mines it planted. The FAO warned of a global food crisis if Hormuz traffic doesn't resume. China called the US blockade against the "common interests of the international community."
The Islamabad talks collapsed after 21 hours. Vance left a "final and best offer." Iran refused to end enrichment. Two hostile navies in a mined corridor within engagement range is the highest-probability environment for an incident neither side planned.

[Dralone&_DR145 @draloneboy]

HOLY SMOKES. Sec. Scott Bessent just said that because Iran BOMBED Gulf neighbors, those countries are suddenly opening up Iranian regime BANK accounts to Treasury

So he can FREEZE their assets! Checkmate playing out. 🔥

"What may prove to be FATAL mistakes the Iranians made was bombing their [Gulf] NEIGHBORS."

"Who are now willing to be much more transparent in terms of the funds, or do a deeper dive in investigating the funds that are held within their banking systems."

"So, we have pushed out to them the request that we want to freeze more funds of the leadership of the IRGC and any members of Iranian leadership."

"The other thing that we have done is we have told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure."

"The Iranians should know that this is going to be the FINANCIAL equivalent of what we saw in the KINETIC activities."

Bessent is an economic ASSASSIN. 🇺🇸

[Dividendology @dividendology]

Discuss...

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

The ceasefire arrived. Markets surged. Both sides claimed victory. Read what each side says it agreed to.
Iran: the US accepted continued Iranian control over Hormuz, uranium enrichment, sanctions relief, and reparations.
The US: a two-week pause while talks continue in Pakistan.
Those are not the same agreement. On day one, Israel launched its strongest strikes on Lebanon since the war began. Iran halted Hormuz traffic in response. No ships have resumed transit.
Watch Larak Island, not the headlines. If tanker traffic resumes at volume, the ceasefire is real. If Iran keeps running the toll booth, the repricing holds.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Two hypotheses for the Iran war, five weeks in.
1: The madman theory is failing. Iran exploits each deadline extension instead of fearing it. Tehran's position hasn't changed once.
2: Iran was never the target. The chaos is aimed at China (COSCO turned back at Larak - Beijing's security guarantee failed its first real test), US allies (forced to build their own maritime architecture), Israel (every extension buys another week of strikes), and US energy producers ($100+ oil as industrial policy).
Both lead to the same positioning conclusion: Hormuz isn't reopening on pre-war terms. The toll booth is data. The rhetoric is noise.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Trump's power plant deadline expires tomorrow at 8pm ET. Asked today whether the war is winding down or escalating, he said: "I don't know."

Iran rejected the 45-day ceasefire. Israel killed the IRGC intelligence chief and struck South Pars overnight. Brent at $109, up 65% from pre-war. The Strait has been closed for six weeks - past the threshold where energy costs embed structurally.

Either Trump escalates tomorrow or extends the deadline again. Either way tomorrow is a big day.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Trump may end the war without reopening Hormuz. That's the signal that moved markets - the WSJ reported Trump told staff he's open to leaving with the Strait still under Iranian control.
Ship transits dropped from 130/day to six. Iran is collecting fees and codifying sovereignty. The UK is building a post-American Hormuz security architecture with 35 nations because the US signaled it may walk away.
The question has shifted from "when does Hormuz reopen" to "who controls it after the US leaves."

[Project Eleven @projecteleven]

🚨 Google has sounded the quantum alarm 🚨

Today, they released groundbreaking progress towards breaking crypto using a quantum computer.

TLDR - Existing cryptography is dead. Mempool attacks are real. We must migrate to post-quantum now.

Thread 🧵

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

The US lifted sanctions on Russian oil to manage the energy crisis from its own war. Russia is using the proceeds to fund Ukraine operations - and feeding Iran satellite imagery of US base locations used to wound 29 American soldiers last week.
That structural contradiction matters more for positioning than any ceasefire headline. The war has created dependencies that don't unwind when Hormuz reopens.
The repricing underway is structural, not cyclical. Energy security and Western Hemisphere supply chains aren't war trades. They're post-war realities being priced in.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Day 30. The Houthis fired at Israel Saturday. If they close Bab al-Mandeb, both major energy chokepoints are under threat simultaneously for the first time. All Middle Eastern energy reroutes around the Cape of Good Hope. Tanker rates, insurance, and delivered costs all reprice structurally.
Iran let 20 Pakistani ships through Hormuz - not an opening, but operational enforcement of its sovereignty claim. Permission-based passage is now the precedent.
Iranian politicians are pushing for NPT withdrawal. If that happens, the geopolitical risk premium doesn't reset after any ceasefire. It becomes permanent.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Trump extended the power plant deadline to April 6 - past the six-week mark where energy costs are fully embedded in supply chains. A ceasefire after that doesn't unwind the inflation already in the pipeline.

Meanwhile Iran is collecting transit fees from ships in Hormuz. Russia is the biggest winner - high oil is funding its Ukraine war. And the Houthi leader just issued his strongest warning yet.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

For fifteen years, Israel killed Iran's nuclear scientists one at a time. Iran adapted - replacements were promoted, programs continued. The cold war tempo was one target every year or two.
The hot war tempo is multiple senior commanders per week. Supreme Leader, security chief, intelligence minister, Basij commander, and Alireza Tangsiri, IRGC Navy chief - all in four weeks. Missile launches down 92% from day one. Over 60% of launchers neutralized. The find-fix-finish cycle is compressing faster than Iran can replace what it loses.
Yesterday Israel killed Tangsiri, the man running the Hormuz blockade, in Bandar Abbas. His intelligence chief died in the same strike. Iran's ceasefire conditions now include sovereignty over Hormuz and formalized transit fees. Those are moves to convert military leverage into legal claims before the military leverage is gone.
Netanyahu ordered maximum destruction of Iran's arms industry within 48 hours - Israeli officials fear Trump announces a ceasefire Saturday. The power plant strike deadline expires tomorrow. Either outcome is investable.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

In the last 48 hours, the US sent Iran a 15-point ceasefire plan through Pakistan, and the Pentagon approved deploying the 82nd Airborne to the Middle East.

Negotiate and escalate simultaneously. The five-day postponement on power plant strikes expires Friday.

The Philippines declared a national emergency over energy. Sri Lanka turned off streetlights. Gas prices have risen 23 days. The economic pass-through is accelerating regardless of which track wins. The six-week mark - when higher costs are fully embedded - is mid-April.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

The war has narrowed to one question: how long can Iran hold Hormuz at risk?

Iran is conserving antiship missiles. Resupply is all bad options - no one is running a Berlin Airlift for Iran. The US kill chain compresses with every shot as AI-assisted ISR learns faster than Iran can adapt.

But the real question is whether Iran pivots before missiles run out. Drone swarms, sea mines, unmanned surface vessels. You don't need to sink a supertanker. You need to set one on fire on camera. Mines are the wild card - cheap, indiscriminate, and very hard to clear during conflict.

The market is pricing talks that may not exist. The operational reality is a grinding race between depletion, adaptation, and escalation.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Trump's Truth Social post swung Brent $20 intraday today.
Trump postponed power plant strikes citing "productive" Iran talks. Brent dropped from $112 to $96. Then Iran denied any talks happened. Brent settled at $100.
The market surged on a post. Gave back half on the denial. Settled in the middle. Nothing on the ground changed. The war premium is real - and it unwinds violently on any signal, real or not, that this might end.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Food for Sunday night thinking:

Friday Trump was "winding down" the war. Saturday night he threatened to obliterate Iran's power plants if Hormuz isn't open in 48 hours.

Both sides are now hitting energy infrastructure directly. Israel struck South Pars. Iran hit Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG terminal - QatarEnergy declared force majeure. Iran hit Kuwait's largest refinery. Hit Fujairah, the UAE's only bypass terminal. Both sides have struck desalination plants.

The Brent curve is pricing a temporary disruption. The physical damage to production capacity doesn't normalize on that timeline.

Either the Strait reopens sooner and the U.S. looks like a military genius, or it escalates and the U.S. looks like an energy policy genius.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Hegseth says Iran's missile volume is down 90%. The US is flying B-1s over Iranian airspace. By every conventional measure, Iran is being dismantled.

But around Day 10, Iran stopped fighting the conventional war. The IRGC shifted to heavier warheads concentrated on Hormuz. This week they hit Fujairah — the UAE's only export terminal that bypasses the Strait.

Iran's ability to fight a war is collapsing. Its ability to hold Hormuz is being preserved. Oil is pricing the gap.

The consensus is positioned for a long war. But Iran has no resupply chain. Every day the stockpile shrinks with no way to rebuild under bombardment. The biggest macro risk might not be $100+ oil for a year. It might be oil crashing back toward $75 in eight weeks and catching the stagflation trade offsides.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Seven FOMC members now project zero cuts in 2026, up from four in December. Powell: inflation progress slower than "hoped," job creation at "essentially zero." Both sides of the stagflation trap, from the Fed chair himself.

Meanwhile, Senator Tillis is blocking Warsh's confirmation. The clean handoff in May may not happen.

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Fed decision tomorrow.

Hold priced at 99%. Watch the dot plots. December projected one cut in 2026, Core PCE at 2.5%, GDP growth at 2.3%. Oil was at $68. All three numbers are moving the wrong direction.

The 2-year at 3.665% is sitting on the Fed Funds rate. Powell’s second-to-last meeting.

This is the trap he leaves for Warsh or a mandate to cut and damn the inflation?

[Jack Phillips @MarketswithJack]

Iran lost its navy, air force, and supreme leader. But every country that asks Tehran for permission to transit Hormuz is recognizing Iranian authority over the Strait. Turkey, India, and China have all done it this week. Trump asked six countries to send warships instead. None have committed. The war is destroying Iran's military. But Iran is converting the Strait into diplomatic leverage.