The Trading Post | 03.20.26

March 20, 2026

Good morning,

The Fed still isn’t your friend, oil is keeping volatility caffeinated, breadth is thinning into Opex, defensives are quietly acting like adults, and traders are getting dragged back to macro whether they like it or not.

Let’s jump in.

Yesterday’s Post-Market Performance

As of 03.19.26 market close.

Market News

  • Fed keeps the leash tight: The market is still trying to price in cuts the Fed clearly does not want to hand out, and that disconnect is keeping the tape choppy, defensive, and hostile to sloppy longs. Traders should keep fading weak rallies in stretched tech until the major indexes reclaim short-term moving averages with improving breadth. CNBC

  • Powell stays hawkish, yields stay relevant: With the Fed parked at 3.50%–3.75% and “fewer cuts” lingering over the market, front-end yields remain a clean tell for growth vs. value rotation. If yields keep pressing higher, favor relative-strength setups in financials and energy while treating high-multiple growth as guilty until proven innocent. Federal Reserve

  • Oil keeps the macro headache alive: Tanker reroutes and Middle East tension are keeping crude elevated, which continues to support energy names while quietly choking fuel-sensitive groups. Look for continuation longs in XLE, XOP, and crude-linked setups on orderly pullbacks, and keep airlines/transports on the weak-watch list. Barrons

  • Macro owns the wheel today: With the earnings calendar looking thin, traders are back to doing what they pretend not to love: staring at index futures, yields, and commodities all day. That raises the odds of fake-outs, mean reversion, and intraday whipsaws around key levels in ES, NQ, RTY, and 0DTE index options. BarChart

  • Breadth is getting uglier into Opex: More stocks are rolling over than participating, which is not exactly the kind of teamwork bulls were hoping for. Tighten risk on high-beta names, respect failed breakouts, and focus on relative-strength leaders still holding their 20- and 50-day moving averages. CNBC

Earnings We’re Watching

  • XPeng Inc. (XPEV) - Friday (AMC)

Trade Ideas

American Tower Corporation (AMT), Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET), Boeing Company (BA),
Cameco Corporation (CCJ)

Celestica, Inc. (CLS), Deere & Company (DE), Dell Technologies, Inc. (DELL),
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (DLR)

Dollar Tree, Inc. (DLTR), Eaton Corporation (ETN), Alphabet Inc. Class A (GOOGL),
Drxn Dly S&P Biotech Bull 3X (LABU)

Lemonade, Inc. (LMND), NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG), GraniteShares 1.5x Long NVDA (NVDL),
Onto Innovation Inc. (ONTO)

Oracle Corporation (ORCL), Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL), Reddit, Inc. Class A Common (RDDT), Rocket Lab USA Inc (RKLB)

Roku, Inc. (ROKU), Shake Shack, Inc. (SHAK), Shopify Inc. (SHOP), TransMedics Group, Inc. (TMDX)

Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), Tesls Motors, Inc. (TSLA), Texas Roadhouse, Inc. (TXRH),
Vistra Energy Corp. (VST)

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

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Daily Moment of Zen

❝

Investors must keep in mind that there's a difference between a good company and a good stock.

Richard Bernstein

Why It Matters:

That’s the market’s favorite little prank: a great business can still be a terrible trade if you buy it at the wrong price, the wrong time, or right as everyone else has already fallen in love with it. Traders forget this constantly. They see a strong brand, a sexy story, a CEO with a cult following, and suddenly valuation, timing, and price action get treated like optional accessories. They are not. A good company can be wildly overowned, technically broken, and perfectly capable of taking your money anyway. The lesson: stop confusing admiration with opportunity. The market does not pay you for having good taste.