2026-03-19 22:02:45
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To investors,
The year started with about as good of an economic setup as you could ask for. Inflation was rapidly falling. There was an AI-driven economic boom underway. Stocks were hovering at all-time high prices. Home affordability finally looked like relief was on the way. And there was a level of optimism held by investors that led to capital pouring into markets.
That all changed in the last few weeks as the United States has been locked in a kinetic conflict with Iran.
Last night that conflict took an even bigger negative turn. The first incident was an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field facilities, which damaged processing and refining infrastructure. This missile strike appears to have significantly impacted output from the facility.
In retaliation, Iran immediately lashed out and successfully struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City. This is a big deal because Ras Laffan is the world’s largest LNG export facility (approximately 20% of global supply). Just look at the destruction from videos surfacing in the aftermath:
Qatar has reported a number of other strikes on their oil and natural gas facilities throughout the country as well. American investors woke up to the news and markets are reacting negatively to the prospect of a crisis.
Daniel Lacalle writes “Markets are reacting to a risk of a global LNG crisis, which is much worse than an oil shock. An oil shock is quickly solved by non-OPEC supply, alternatives, and flexible systems. LNG is only 15% of the total gas market but very tight in supply and much more challenging to solve, adding to the problems of regasification and storage.”
The most interesting aspect of the market reaction over the last week is the conflicting signals coming from different alarm systems. Michael Gayed shows “bonds are pricing in recession while oil prices scream inflation. Both can't be right.”
But maybe both are right and we are headed towards very weird times. This stagflation-type situation would really throw a wrench in the booming economic times that illustrated the start of the year. CNBC discussed this well yesterday:
So the United States has a few things that need to be done immediately:
Secure the Strait of Hormuz and re-open the flow of oil to the world
Increase US production and export of oil, including deregulating the oil and gas industry so we can drill faster
Remove or reduce sanctions on various countries or oil to increase global flows
Release strategic reserves from the US and allies
Simply, the global battle over oil prices is on. The higher the price goes, the more pain Iran is able to inflict on the world. The lower the price goes, the more leash the United States and our allies will get with the conflict duration.
Unfortunately, the trend will be for higher oil prices. This means the US is on a shot clock. Quickly end the war and claim victory or risk pushing the US into recession in a mid-term year. It is hard to see a world where Trump will allow that to happen, so the entire market is waiting for the pivot.
The question is just how long will we be waiting. And only the guy in the White House knows the answer to that question. Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Bill Barhydt is the founder and CEO of Abra and a longtime leader in digital assets and crypto wealth management.
In this conversation, we discuss bitcoin’s relationship to global liquidity, money printing, and geopolitical risk, as well as why retail investors still drive crypto price action. We also cover new crypto regulation and the Clarity Act, Abra’s plans to go public via SPAC, the rise of tokenized equities and real-world assets, and how AI is transforming financial services and business operations.
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Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
2026-03-17 22:44:26
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To investors,
War has broken out in the Middle East. Bombs, drones, and missiles are crisscrossing the region. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Oil prices keep pushing higher. Private credit cracks have turned into a tsunami of fear paralyzing Wall Street. And Apollo’s John Zito just issued a warning about private equity valuations.
To say there is chaos and carnage across financial markets would be an understatement.
Yet, investors are pouring capital into their favorite trade: AI stocks. The rapid allocation back into these high flying equities has as much to do with the macro environment as it does with the underlying stocks themselves.
On the macro front, investors are coming to terms with the idea that a war in Iran is going to have little to no effect on software technology companies. Could various forms of electricity needed for data centers get more expensive? Sure. But that is still a very small impact on the behemoth corporations that are printing cash at a pace never seen in human history.
We can also see the company-specific announcements driving increased investor demand as well. Meta is reportedly going to lay off 20% of their workforce and the stock jumped more than 2% yesterday. Nvidia jumped 1.6% after CEO Jensen Huang announced new components at their conference yesterday, before saying the company expects to do $1 trillion in revenue for its newest chip by the end of 2027. $1 trillion!
Tesla and Micron were both up on the day after making separate announcements about various production facilities that each company is building related to AI chips and memory. The news was fast and furious all day, but investors were prepared with plenty of dry powder as they poured capital back into the darlings of the stock market.
And I wouldn’t expect the stock market to start underperforming today. Carson Group’s Ryan Detrick points out that St Patrick’s Day is historically the 7th best performing day of the year. Just look at all that green:
But the structural bull market in equities has some investors wondering what could happen in other areas of the market as geopolitical uncertainty persists. Brian Sozzi writes that according to the Bank of America fund manager survey, it appears “smart money [is] raising cash, [and] not expecting much on the economy.”
But all this raising of cash by fund managers is probably just another opportunity for smart investors to buy the dip. Creative Planning’s Peter Mallouk reminds us “Over the last 75 years, the average intra-year market drop has been 14%. If you are overly stressed out about the current 5% drawdown, the stock market isn’t for you. Downside volatility is the price investors pay for long-term outperformance.”
And if you are hoping the Federal Reserve will bail out the market with significant rate cuts, which is what they should have been doing over the last few months, Bob Elliot highlights that history shows us a Fed cut is unlikely.
He writes “there is a lot of hope that the Fed will cut further in response to this oil shock to support growth. Even a quick look at history shows at best the Fed pauses, and at worst hikes come to fight inflation.”
The increasing complexity of the current situation has institutional investors on their back foot. They may be pouring cash into AI stocks, but otherwise they are playing defense. It is hard to take big risks when the market is gyrating in this way. You don’t want to go tell your LPs how you screwed up their returns by trying to be the hero. It is much easier to take what the market gives you and simply claim “geopolitical volatility” drove your portfolio down with the market.
Individual investors are in a different situation. This is where sophisticated retail investors shine. They take big risks. They buy the dip. Volatility is their friend. They are hunting for opportunities when everyone else is scared. You have to love the cowboy nature of the people with real skin in the game. They are putting their own personal money at risk. They are trying to better their financial situation.
There are two types of investors in the world: those who run from risk and those who run towards it. This week is a perfect example of the how the difference shows up in the market.
Have a great day. I will talk to you next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Tom Sosnoff is a veteran trader and entrepreneur, the founder of LossDog, and the builder of multiple billion-dollar companies. In this conversation, we discuss why volatility creates opportunity, how he thinks about active investing across asset classes, and why he believes crypto deserves a place in every portfolio.
We also talk about options trading, oil and commodity volatility, the rise of self-directed investors, prediction markets, AI’s role in portfolio construction and financial advice, and how Tom is thinking about building the next generation of investing tools.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
2026-03-16 22:36:56
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To investors,
Yesterday marked the 15th day since the start of the Iran bombings. While the United States and our allies have hit a reported 6,000 targets since the start of the conflict, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and there is no clear end date in sight.
Over those 15 days, we have seen most asset prices fall as investors try to make sense of the uncertainty. The Nasdaq is down 2%, the S&P is down just over 3%, gold is down 3.5% and TLT has fallen nearly 5% since February 28th.
But the two shining lights in investor portfolios are oil and bitcoin.
Oil is up approximately 45% because there is much less global oil production going on. Remember, about 20% of all global oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, so if demand stays constant and supply drops materially, the price has to rise to accommodate everyone. Supply-demand from your Economics 101 class is essentially a law of the universe.
And it doesn’t seem to matter what announcements or actions are coming out of the White House right now. Many developed nations claimed they were going to collectively release 400 million barrels of oil. Trump was rumored to use the War Powers Act to facilitate more oil production in Southern California. We even saw the headline that the US military and our allies would help escort various ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
None of it changed reality though. Oil keeps appreciating in price and it likely won’t come down until the conflict is over, the uncertainty fades, and the Strait of Hormuz is opened again.
But the most interesting story to me in global finance is the performance of bitcoin. The digital currency has been trading with high correlation to software stocks over the last few months. But stocks are down, as is gold, yet bitcoin has appreciated approximately 10% since the first bomb was dropped on Iran.
On one hand, bitcoin is doing exactly what you would expect it to do. Bitcoin investors have long bragged about it being decentralized and uncorrelated, so the chaos hedge is doing its job during global turmoil. On the other hand, bitcoin has become much more popular in institutional portfolios, hence the software stock correlation, so my guess is that non-institutional buyers are rushing to the largest digital asset looking for safety.
It is almost like the world is remembering that bitcoin is a borderless asset that operates outside the traditional financial system. Or that bitcoin serves as the most sensitive macro asset to global liquidity, so price appreciation will be basically guaranteed if nation states need to print money to fund the ongoing war for a prolonged period of time.
If bitcoin’s outperformance continues, I would expect sophisticated investors to begin looking at the asset more deeply. They dream of having a non-sovereign, geopolitical hedge to add to their portfolios for moments like this. Historically, these investors were highly skeptical of bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry. Many of them doubted the longevity of the asset or they questioned the unpredictability of an 80 vol asset.
Those fears and concerns will quickly dissipate if bitcoin is perceived to pass this geopolitical test. Investors put capital where their confidence grows. And bitcoin’s best argument right now is not hype, but instead substance. Performance is a hell of a drug.
The global asset scoreboard has bitcoin beating most of its peers. If that outperformance continues, bitcoin is going to have a lot of new friends in the coming months.
Hope you all have a great start to your week. I will talk to everyone tomorrow.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Jordi Visser is a veteran macro investor with 30+ years of experience and the author of the VisserLabs Substack.
In this conversation, we discuss the growing cracks in private credit, rising oil prices, inflation pressures, and why Jordy believes the market is underestimating the risk of a broader financial shock.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Summ – (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
2026-03-12 22:12:14
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To investors,
The eyes of finance remain on the Strait of Hormuz as Iran attempts to shut down one of the most important logistic channels in the world. We have seen multiple ships attacked in the Strait, including a projectile that hit a Thai-flagged ship and other vessels that appear to have hit underwater mines planted by Iran.
This increased pressure in the strait has led individual countries (ex: India) to attempt negotiations with the Iranian government to allow their nation’s ships to pass in the strait. Reuters is reporting conflicting public statements from Iran and India, so it appears there is still significant complexity and confusion.
The reason this is important is because the price of oil continues to be highly volatile in response. Over the last five days, oil went from $77 to nearly $120 per barrel, then it went back down to $77, and now sits around $92. This type of whiplash drives uncertainty for investors in the short-term, but it creates concerns long-term about the impact on inflation.
We can see in the real-time metric from Truflation that inflation is starting to tick up over the last few days. While the current 1.2% reading is still substantially below the Fed’s stated target of 2%, you have to constantly evaluate the direction of travel more than the current number on any given day.
If we dig deeper into the inflation data, Anna Wong (Bloomberg’s Chief US Economist) points out the wide disparity in different regions across the country. There is about 1% inflation in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. But inflation is closer to 3% in states like California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
This is a good reminder that inflation is experienced differently by different people. Some of the difference is driven by your local economy and some is driven by your personal spending habits. But regardless of the regional or personal differences right now, we know inflation is starting to tick up. For example, gas prices are now averaging $3.60 a gallon, which is a 62 cent increase since February 28th.
This brings us to the question of what assets should you buy in your portfolio to benefit from higher inflation levels? I asked CFO Silvia to give me a breakdown by leveraging the latest AI models to answer the question.
I am hosting a webinar with Arch Public TODAY @ 2pm ET where we will discuss how to turn today’s volatility into the precise moment high-net-worth investors build their strongest long-term positions.
If you are an investor and want to learn different strategies on how to navigate the downside volatility in today’s market, this webinar is for you!
There were four big buckets of capital allocation she highlighted:
Real Assets - real estate, commodities, and precious metals
Fixed income - TIPS, I bonds, and floating rate bonds
Equities - companies with pricing power, energy & materials stocks, value stocks, and dividend growth stocks
Alternative assets - infrastructure, farmland, timber, and bitcoin
There is no guarantee that inflation is going to surge significantly higher, nor that inflation will be sticky over a prolonged period of time. But if that happens, it will be important for investors to update their portfolio for this new environment that we are headed into.
As most of you know, I am less concerned about inflation in the medium-to-long term. I believe the deflationary impact of tariffs, deportations, AI, and robotics are very hard to overcome. But I will change my mind if the Iran conflict stretches into a months-long battle that leaves the Strait of Hormuz closed.
Investing is not supposed to be easy. The recent complexity and uncertainty proves that. Best of luck to all of you out there. I will talk to you next time.
Tillman Holloway is the Founder & CEO of Arch Public. In this conversation, we discuss the rise of AI-driven investing and how autonomous agents could reshape portfolio management.
We also cover bitcoin market catalysts, investor behavior during volatility, and how institutions are positioning across crypto and emerging financial products.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
Summ– (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender.
NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
2026-03-10 23:43:43
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To investors,
Markets are gyrating, volatility is spiking, and investors are trying to figure out what to do. The state of the US economy is in a constant pendulum swing between a potential economic golden age and a fear of the next great recession.
So what exactly is driving these chaos and uncertainty? Well, it isn’t really one thing and that is what makes the situation so unique. The Dot Com bubble was driven by the tech sector, the Global Financial Crisis was driven by overleveraged housing, yet right now we can point out numerous threats that are coming at the economy from different directions.
There was a great article recently in Bloomberg titled “Markets Buffeted by War, AI Stress and Credit Cracks All at Once.”
The three reporters who put it together wrote:
“Trump’s decision to attack Iran, no matter what he may now declare, has injected a new and potentially long-lasting shock into the global economy at a time when investors were already grappling with an array of forces threatening to upend investor confidence that, until recently, had seemed bulletproof.
That’s fanning the most intense market volatility since April last year, when prices were roiled by Trump’s unveiling of global tariffs.
And Iran is only part of the story. There’s also the emergence of AI as a disruptive technology capable of suddenly wiping out, as well as creating, wealth for shareholders and creditors. There are the soured loans that are starting to pop up in growing numbers in the booming private-credit industry. There’s the softening of the US job market. And there’s the stubbornly high inflation that’s casting doubt on whether the Federal Reserve will be able to resume cutting interest rates — and possibly even force European central banks to start raising them.”
Now I agree with Bloomberg’s assessment on most of the things every investor should be aware of: AI, war, private credit, and a soft labor market.
Where I disagree is on inflation. There is really two ways to think through this aspect of the US economy. First, the real-time measurements of inflation are showing that current inflation levels are under 1% nationally. This is largely being driven by drops in housing and other material aspects of an American’s daily life. Now remember, products and services can feel expensive because past inflation drove prices really high, yet at the same time current inflation can be low, which means prices are not getting worse at an accelerated rate. That conversation has been beat like a dead horse though.
What I find more interesting is that each of the potential threats outlined by Bloomberg is actually a deflationary development that would lead to lower inflation. For example, private credit has been on the rise as financial organizations lend money to small and medium sized businesses in recent years. This opportunity opened up because of the Dodd-Frank Act which prevented most banks from lending to these businesses in an easy way.
I am hosting a webinar with Arch Public this Thursday @ 2pm ET where we will discuss how to turn today’s volatility into the precise moment high-net-worth investors build their strongest long-term positions.
If you are an investor and want to learn different strategies on how to navigate the downside volatility in today’s market, this webinar is for you!
So now that cracks are starting to show up in the private credit industry, we must recognize that any sort of market downturn in those activities would be highly deflationary. As we see defaults, redemptions, gating, or forced deleveraging, we will see Lenders stop making new loans, existing loans will get restructured or written down, and companies will lose access to refinancing.
Because the US economy relies on credit expansion for a good portion of growth, if these issues start to materialize then you can expect reduced business investment, hiring freezes or layoffs, lower M&A activity, and lower economic growth. This is also known as deflationary forces!
This is not a story exclusive to private credit though.
A soft labor market is deflationary because wages are the largest source of income and demand in the economy. When labor weakens, income growth slows, which reduces spending and pricing power across the system. More deflationary forces!
And we know AI is highly deflationary as we squeeze ineffiencies out of the economy, which allows companies to produce more profits with fewer employees. Elon Musk believes the rise of AI will be a supersonic tsunami that hits the US economy with such force that the government will be overwhelmed and need to start printing more money in an emergency fashion. Who knows if that will happen as quickly as he believes, but no one can argue that AI is not deflationary.
And then this brings us to war. Normally this is an inflationary force because governments need to borrow a significant amount of money to afford the war, but the inflationary forces may never materialize if the war is short and doesn’t become a prolonged affair. Given that all the communication coming from the current administration is the goal of a short war, I am less worried about the current Iran situation creating meaningful inflation that causes issues in the economy.
So this brings me to what I think is going to happen from here.
First, when it comes to monetary policy, I believe we will see more interest rate cuts than most people are expecting. If we get deflationary forces in the US economy, that will force the Fed’s hand. But we also know Fed nominee Kevin Warsh has explicitly said he believes interest rates should be lower as well, so I wouldn’t bet money that he says one thing publicly and does another thing once he is the Fed Chairman.
Second, asset prices have been incredibly resilient this year. We violently extradited Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, we negotiated more access to Greenland, we bombed the hell out of Iran, we have been bombing narco terrorists in Ecuador, and now we are threatening Cuba with regime change, yet the S&P and Nasdaq are both down less than 2% year-to-date. Just look at these charts from Public.com - you would expect the stock market to be substantially lower, but that is not the case.
Gold is up 20% during the same time frame and my guess is that asset prices will continue to do fairly well given the economic backdrop. The tougher areas for asset prices have been software stocks and bitcoin, which seem to be trading in lock-step with each other.
And lastly, I believe we will see an immense wave of innovation that drives GDP growth higher. I still think people are drastically underestimating the power of artificial intelligence and robotics. These technologies are going to be pervasive throughout our lives and we barely understand how profound the impact will be. As the innovations start to appear, we should enter a zone of exponential production. Robots will be helping to create more robots. AI software will start writing more software.
As we hit that escape velocity, my greatest hope is that we are able to claim victory on an age of abundance that is driven by the economic golden age. There is no promise this will happen, but I am optimistic that it can happen.
Have a great day and I will talk to everyone next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Shehzan Maredia is the Founder & CEO of Lava, a bitcoin-backed lending platform that allows users to borrow against their bitcoin without selling it. This conversation was recorded live at Bitcoin Investor Week in New York.
In this discussion, we cover why many bitcoin holders are borrowing against their BTC instead of selling it, how everyday workers have quietly built wealth by consistently saving in bitcoin, and why bitcoin-backed loans are increasingly being used to fund major purchases like homes. We also discuss stablecoins, global access to dollars, and the future of bitcoin-native financial services.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
Summ– (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
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2026-03-09 20:13:21
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To investors,
The oil market is going through a rapid shift and those changes are poised to have a profound impact on the American economy. Everyone was celebrating back in January when energy prices fell 1.5% and gas prices at the pump fell more than 3% in the month. Gas prices were down 7.5% in the trailing 12-months, which was providing much needed relief to the consumer.
All of that has quickly reversed over the last month though.
Oil is up more than 60% in the last 30 days, mainly driven by a 42% gain over the last week. Gas prices have rocketed more than 14% higher during the last 7-days. This brings the average price per gallon to more than $3.40 nationally.
It is no secret that the root cause of these price increases is the US-Israel attacks on Iran. The Middle Eastern country produces between 3.5 million to 4 million barrels of oil per day. This means Iran is responsible for about 4% of total global oil production.
That may sound small, but Iran is the 6th largest oil producing country in the world. They are on par with China’s oil production output. So when the US and Israel decided over the weekend to broaden their offensive from only military targets to now include successful strikes on energy infrastructure and oil depots, oil opened higher last night.
We would be talking about $120 oil price or more this morning, but the G7 countries quickly addressed the issue and announced they were preparing to release 400 million barrels of oil into the global supply. This immediate and drastic response of increasing supply has had a cooling effect on the oil market over the last 18 hours.
Rather than waste time trying to predict the future oil price, I want to answer a single question: will higher oil prices create destructive high inflation in the American economy?
To answer this question, we have to understand the relationship between oil prices and inflation. Thankfully, the World Bank published an analysis two years ago that examined the main drivers of global inflation. In the piece, they wrote:
“Drivers of global inflation. Oil price shocks were the main drivers of variation in global inflation with a contribution of over 38 percent, followed by global demand shocks with a contribution of about 28 percent over the past five decades, and much smaller contributions of global supply shocks and interest rate shocks. Impulse responses also suggest a more significant role for oil prices and global demand shocks. For instance, following a positive oil price shock of around 10 percent, global inflation increases by 0.35 percentage point within a year, and 0.55 percentage point within three years.
In addition, oil price and global demand shocks were the main drivers of movements in global inflation around every global recession since 1970 (1975, 1982, 1991, 2009, and 2020). For example, in the early months of the COVID19-induced global recession of 2020, demand shocks severely depressed global inflation. Oil price and global demand shocks led the surge in global inflation between mid-2020 and mid-2022, as well as the disinflation since mid-2022.”
This World Bank analysis would suggest that inflation is going much higher considering oil is up recently much more than 10%. But maybe there is more to the story? Let’s continue investigating…
The Federal Reserve tends to agree that oil prices can have a big impact on domestic inflation. The central bank wrote a blog post titled “Does oil drive inflation?” and explained the relationship between oil prices and inflation:
“[There is] a strong positive relationship between oil prices and PPI inflation: That is, higher oil prices are associated with higher producer prices and vice versa. Specifically, the correlation between oil prices and the PPI is 0.71. This strong link likely comes from the importance of oil as an input in the production of goods. In contrast, [there is] a positive but much weaker relationship between oil prices and CPI inflation: The correlation is 0.27, much lower than for producer prices. This weaker link between oil prices and consumer prices likely comes from the relatively higher weight of services in the U.S. consumption basket, which you’d expect to rely less on oil as a production input.”
So the Federal Reserve acknowledges a significantly weaker relationship between oil prices and consumer inflation, which brings me to a very important point. If we learned one thing from 2025, it is that the economy is much more resilient than you think and high inflation can really only come from insane government spending.
In addition, the current deflationary forces of tariffs, deportations, AI, and robotics are a formidable force that likely has a much bigger impact on consumer inflation than oil prices. For example, Truflation shows that US housing is already in deflation (down ~1.5% over the last 12 months) and housing is as much as 35% of the government’s CPI metric. Energy is closer to 4-5% of the CPI calculation, so what happens in the housing market is significantly more important.
That is not all though.
The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip wrote a column titled “Why the Oil Shock Probably Won’t Derail the Economy. And One Way It Might.” He explains:
“Higher oil prices are like a tax, cutting into household consumption while boosting inflation and interest rates. But that effect has shrunk as the U.S. became less energy dependent. The U.S. consumed 4% less gasoline in 2025 than in 2007, while producing 42% more goods and services (as measured by gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation). The share of households’ consumption of energy, including electricity, natural gas and gasoline, fell from 5.7% in 2007 to 3.7% last year.
Meanwhile, the shale revolution has turned the U.S. into a net exporter of petroleum and major exporter of liquefied natural gas. That means the hit to consumers is offset by a boost to producers.”
With this in mind, everyone just needs to take a deep breath. I know that won’t be popular to say, but it is true. The doomsday predictors are out in full force today. They will tell you the perils of a persistently high oil prices. They will promise you the world is ending or how the US economy is going to suddenly collapse. None of it is reality.
The truth is that every single nation state involved in the Iran conflict is incentivized to get this over with quickly. The US wants to claim victory as fast as possible. Iran wants to stop the bombs dropping. China needs oil to import into their country. And European countries are simply looking to return to a world where stability rules the day.
So if the conflict in Iran is short-lived, oil prices won’t be persistently higher. If oil is not persistently higher, then inflation is not going to soar to ridiculous levels. And if inflation doesn’t soar higher, the Fed is going to be forced to cut interest rates and print more money to deal with the deflationary forces.
I don’t make the rules. I just try to watch what is happening in the world and figure out where we go from here. Hope you have a great start to your week. I will talk to everyone next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
Jordi Visser is a veteran macro investor with 30+ years of experience and the author of the VisserLabs Substack.
In this conversation, we unpack the chaos hitting markets in 2026—from weak jobs data and Fed uncertainty to private credit cracks, AI-driven disruption, and the collapse of old economic playbooks. We also discuss software repricing, energy infrastructure, synthetic media, portfolio positioning, and why Jordi believes bitcoin is the truest AI trade in a world moving faster than ever.
Figure – True DeFi Democratized Prime to earn ~9% APY! They also have the lowest industry interest rates at 8.91% with 12 month terms! Take out a Bitcoin Backed Loan today and buy more Bitcoin. Check out Figure! Figure Lending LLC dba Figure. Equal Opportunity Lender. NMLS 1717824. Terms and conditions apply.
Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithmic tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!)
BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $2,000 in rewards.
Award-winning Fountain Life - Energy supercharged. Memory sharper. Life extended. Ready for the best investment you’ll ever make? Schedule a life-changing call at www.FountainLife.com
Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. To create an account, click here for individuals and here for entities.
Bitget - Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold.
Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp
Summ– (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) generates accurate IRS-ready tax reports that help maximize deductions and pay the least tax possible. With support for 3,500+ exchanges, wallets, and protocols, Summ makes crypto taxes simple. Visit Summ.com and get 20% off with code POMP20.
🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
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