Casualty of War
Boodle Blog: Casualty of War? The April 2026 blog
Hello everyone, and welcome to the April 2026 edition of the boodle blog. If you are a returning member, welcome back and if this is your first time here, thank you for choosing boodle as your go to resource for learning how to invest the right way.
At Boodle, we believe that the person who is best capable of managing and growing your money is you, and we provide you the tools to do this successfully.
March 31st marked the end to the first quarter in the market, and as we go to press, the U.S. remains in a war with the country of Iran, and this war is responsible for the (current) hit that everyone’s portfolio is taking.
This month we will talk about the economy, the war and where the market stands as of April 1, and what our opinion is for our members going forward.
The first quarter for the market was a challenging one to say the least. For every step we took forward, the market took two steps backward. We will tackle the year to date numbers, and then move to the March month to date numbers.
The DOW ended down 3.24% YTD and the S&P 500 shed 4.63% so far this year. The NASDAQ which had been the big winner, became the biggest YTD loser with a loss of 7.11%.
For the month of March, the numbers didn’t fare much better. The DOW fell 4.15% and the S&P 500 finished with a 4.23% loss and the NASDAQ was off by 4.11% for the month.
Why was the performance in the market so negative to start the year? The war between the U.S. and Iran is the main reason. After successfully removing Venezuela strongman Nicolas Maduro and his wife in January, the Trump administration set its sights on Iran and its stockpile of nuclear materials. This second excursion of removing a hostile government hasn’t gone as smoothly as the Venezuelan war.
If you watch two different news channels, you are likely to get one news channel saying the war is over, while the other channel will say the war will drag on for years (think Ukraine). At boodle we think the truth lies somewhere in between those two diverse opinions.
The consumer is feeling the pain in their pocketbook when they purchase food and gas. Boodle believes that the pinch on consumers will be with us for a little while longer.
Switching to the jobs numbers, the unemployment rate is sitting around 4.3% and we expect that number to remain fairly consistent when the BLS releases the March jobs report in a couple of days.
Inflation remains fairly benign and the rate sits at 2.4%, in spite of the recent spike in oil & gas.
What is Boodle's opinion for our membership portfolios? As long as you have a long term outlook (5 to 10 years) and have structured your portfolio correctly to manage the ups and downs of markets, we believe that members should continue their dollar-cost-averaging approach to their portfolio and use this current reset in the market to purchase good funds and stocks that are currently at discount prices. Boodle is here to answer any questions you may have about investing. You can go to the “Contact Us — goBoodle page on this site and send us an email. We will respond within 24 hours. Thank you for choosing Boodle and have a wonder Easter and an enjoyable April. We will see you back here in May.