The Trading Post | 03.03.26

March 03, 2026

Good morning,

Futures are getting smoked as Iran war headlines escalate, crude is ripping on Strait of Hormuz fears, gold and the dollar are catching a safe-haven bid, high-beta tech is getting tossed overboard, and single-stock volatility remains alive and well (TGT up, MDB down bad).

Let’s jump in.

Yesterday’s Post-Market Performance

As of 03.02.26 market close.

Market News

  • Futures plunge as Iran war intensifies; oil and safe-havens bid while equities brace for risk-off open. Geopolitical premium is back in crude, and that bleeds into inflation expectations and rates. Growth gets repriced first. WSJ

  • Crude spikes on Strait of Hormuz fears as tankers reroute, fueling energy breakout. Energy names and futures are leading premarket; geopolitical “winners” are obvious. Don’t overthink it—follow the flow. Bloomberg

  • Target pops on earnings beat while MongoDB craters on weak guidance. Dispersion is king. It’s not a stock market—it’s a market of stocks. Post-earnings momentum remains tradable. CNBC

  • Energy small caps dominate premarket gainers; thin biotechs slide on heavy volume. Rotation into liquidity and themes. Leave the illiquid lottery tickets to Reddit. StockAnalysis

  • Treasury yields stay elevated as Fed messaging leans “higher for longer,” supporting dollar and gold bid. Rate-sensitive growth remains vulnerable; macro alignment favors metals and dollar strength on equity weakness. Federal Reserve

Earnings We’re Watching

  • AutoZone, Inc. (AZO) - Tuesday (BMO) 

  • Best Buy C., Inc. (BBY) - Tuesday (BMO) 

  • Target Corp. (TGT) - Tuesday (BMO) 

  • Versant Corp. (VSNT) - Tuesday (BMO) 

  • Viking Holdings Ltd (VIK) - Tuesday (BMO) 

  • CrowdStrike, Inc. (CRWD) - Tuesday (AMC)

Trade Ideas

Apple Inc. (AAPL), Ares Management L.P. (ARES), Arm Holdings plc - American De (ARM),
Bloom Energy Corporation (BE)

Dell Technologies Inc (DELL), Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (DLR), Estee Lauder Companies, Inc. (EL),
Elastic N.V. (ESTC)

Alphabet Inc Class A (GOOGL), Home Depot, Inc. (HD), International Business Machine (IBM),
Kkr (KKR)

Lennar Corporation (LEN), 3M Company (MMM), Molina Healthcare Inc. (MOH),
Cloudflare, Inc. (NET)

Philip Morris International (PM), Rocket Lab USA Inc (RKLB), Snowflake Inc. Class A Common (SNOW), Constellation Brands Inc (STZ)

TransMedics Group, Inc. (TMDX), Texas Roadhouse, Inc. (TXRH), Vistra Energy Corp. (VST),
Apple, Inc. (AAPL)

Want to learn how we trade these? Learn the setup we call the “High Volatility Switchback” trade.

Get these ideas delivered to your inbox daily with Trade With Rob. It’s 100% free. Sign up here.

Daily Moment of Zen

❝

It's better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

Warren Buffett

Why It Matters:

This is the polite, Nebraska way of saying: stop dumpster diving.

Traders love “cheap.” Low P/E. Down 60%. “Oversold.” Looks like a deal. Feels like a deal. Smells like a trap.

The market consistently pays up for quality — strong balance sheets, real cash flow, durable demand, pricing power. Those names don’t go on clearance often. And when they do, it’s usually during broad panic… not because the business broke.

A “fair company at a wonderful price” often stays cheap for a reason. Weak margins. No moat. No growth. No sponsorship. You end up babysitting dead money while the real leaders compound without you.

For active traders, the translation is simple:
Focus on relative strength. Trade institutional favorites. Pullbacks in leaders tend to resolve higher. Bounces in laggards tend to resolve lower.

Cheap is tempting. Quality is profitable.

The market rewards durability — not desperation.