On Monday, March 23, President Trump announced a 5-day ceasefire on Iran's energy infrastructure. This decision increased the market value of the U.S. stock market by up to 1.7 trillion USD, caused oil prices to drop by 15%, and pushed Bitcoin above 70,000 USD. The ceasefire has been extended until April 6.
However, Tehran stated that this news is simply fake news, and Israel has already violated Trump's ceasefire agreement. Most of the financial benefits that occurred nearly all disappeared within just a week. So, did Trump really talk effectively with Iran, or was this merely a strategy to push the financial market and let the big players cash in?
How does Trump's pause align with market timing?
The event began on Saturday, March 22, when Trump posted a 48-hour ultimatum on Truth Social, demanding that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on that country's power plants.
This deadline will expire on Monday evening, with traditional financial markets opened and fully at risk.
However, Trump posted at 7 AM ET on Monday, claiming to have had good and very beneficial talks with Tehran, announcing a 5-day delay on attacks against all energy infrastructure.
The 5-day period expires on Saturday, March 28, which is not a random day.
The stock market is closed.
The liquidity of the futures market is thin.
The financial institution's trading desk is closed.
If the situation escalates again, it will occur during low liquidity, just as it has preceded every major market shock during Trump's era since mid-2025.
The market moved before the announcement was officially made. Between 6:49 and 6:50 AM ET, about 6,200 Brent and WTI futures contracts were traded, amounting to an estimated value of 580 million USD.
Data from Bloomberg, reported by the Financial Times, indicated that the average for this same minute over the previous five trading days was about 700 contracts.
At the same time, there was a purchase of S&P 500 futures worth 1.5 billion USD. That single order caused the index to surge by 0.3% immediately. Fourteen minutes later, Trump's message was posted at 7:10 AM ET, with the S&P 500 increasing in value by approximately 2 trillion USD.
Regulatory agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom are reportedly investigating this information, but no charges have been filed yet.
The surge in trading volume before that post was significant enough to be noticeable, and I think there will be an investigation into the reasons behind this, wrote CBS News citing Stephen Piepgrass, a partner specializing in futures trading from the law firm Troutman Pepper Locke.
Iran confirmed that this has never happened.
Tehran's response is clear: Member of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stated that this is fake news, deliberately intended to disrupt the financial and oil markets.
The State Department explained that this is psychological warfare to press down energy prices and delay further attacks. Officials acknowledged receiving messages through intermediaries but confirmed that no direct negotiations took place.
This denial caused the market to reverse immediately. Oil prices recovered, stocks regained about half, and BTC pulled back to touch 70,000 USD briefly, resulting in a liquidation of short crypto positions worth 265 million USD in just 15 minutes.
Monday is not the first time, as BeInCrypto has tracked 11 significant announcements from Trump that affected market prices since November 2024. Each instance follows what traders call the TACO pattern, which is a cycle of movement, decline, reversal, and recovery of the market.
The tax announcement on Liberation Day occurred on April 2, 2025, at 4:30 PM ET, after the market closed. The next morning, Trump posted, 'BE COOL! THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!' just a few minutes after the market opened, followed by a 90-day tax suspension, causing the S&P 500 to surge by 9.5%.
On October 10, 2025, there was a threat to impose a 100% tax on China. On Friday, 20 minutes after the market closed, BTC dropped 18.4%, and cryptocurrencies faced liquidations amounting to 19.1 billion USD in 24 hours.
Six confirmed movements on Friday night, from June 2025 to February 2026, all had the same logic. BeInCrypto found that this is a 60-hour recurring timeline pattern present in all those events.
The slow-moving event with Iran represents further developments, shifting from a market shock on Friday to a relaxation on Monday. However, now Monday itself has become a day of movement with an ultimatum issued on Saturday, easing concerns on Monday, and likely escalating in the next weekend.
What do experts see?
Richard Heydarian, a political scientist from Oxford, warned in the BeInCrypto podcast that the economic damage from the conflict could reach trillions of USD, while Trump's tactics are unpredictable.
Trump has a predictable strategy, but the tactics are utterly unpredictable. We know what his ultimate goal is: to maintain America's unquestioned superpower status. But how to reach that point in such a complex world? No one knows, Richard Heydarian told BeInCrypto.
Mordecai Kurz, an economist from Stanford who spoke on the same program, pointed out that these issues represent a structural problem of concentrated private power, causing ordinary people to be adversely affected.
There is so much concentrated private power in the United States that this situation cannot continue… Each youth will have opportunities only when technology is used for the benefit of the people, and policies must serve the public as well, Kurz explained.
The 5-day countdown will expire on Saturday. If the pattern remains the same, the next big news will be released when the market closes and liquidity is at its weakest.
Throughout the 11 recorded events over a 16-month period, this pattern has never varied even once.