Investing During Wartime
Hello everyone, and welcome to the March 2026 edition of the Boodle blog. We are happy to have you as a client, and if this is your first visit to our site, thank you for being a member! At boodle, we believe that the person best qualified to manage and grow your money is you, and we are your source for making sense of the investment world.
We are in the third month of 2026, and market volatility seems to be the hallmark of the year so far. Before we talk about what is going on in the world,and what to expect in March, let’s take a look back to February and get an idea of the returns in our stock market portfolios.
The DOW edged up a tiny bit in February and notched a fractional gain of +0.17%. The S&P 500 slipped nearly 9 tenths of one percent, while the NASDAQ fell -2.47%.
The drag on stocks in February appears to be AI related. Nvidia came out with record earnings, meaning that companies were continuing their spending in this sector, but it didn’t fear that the stock market is in a bubble.
The pullback in the market last month could be attributable to several key economic metrics: we saw a January jobs report that showed 130,000 jobs had been created, while at the same time job openings had dipped slightly.
President Trump announced a new Federal Reserve Chairman, Kevin Warsh as the replacement to outgoing Fed Chair, Jerome Powell. This transition will take place in May, provided Warsh wins Senate approval.
The Fed held rates steady at its meeting in February (3.5%-3.75%), and any near term rate cut isn’t in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, the United States with its Middle East partner Israel launched an attack on the country of Iran.These developments are taking place as we write this blog. The situation is very fluid and we suggest you watch your local news for the latest account.
This war will play a part in your portfolio due to the proximity of Iran to the strait of Hormuz. We at Boodle will be watching this conflict very carefully. We believe this conflict with Iran is a serious escalation of hostilities and we would tell all Boodle members to be extremely cautious with their portfolios at this time in history.
Our view is that all Boodle members should be adding to the portion of their portfolios that mimic the total stock market, and place money that was meant for individual stock investing in cash reserves until at which time that hostilities between the warring countries have subsided. Here at Boodle we will continue to watch the developments in this war, and we hope to see an end to hostilities between the factions as soon as possible. We wish you a happy March, and hope to see you back here in the month of April. If anyone has questions that they would like Boodle to answer,go to the “Contact Us” link on our site and submit your question. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
Enjoy your day, and thank you for choosing Boodle.