Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf shared something resembling trading tips on X (Twitter). He referred to Trump's messages before the stock market opened as a “reverse indicator” and urged his followers to do the opposite with every energy decision.
The post made an already strange week even more special. During the week, Wall Street's popular strategy of buying when the market crashes due to real geopolitical risks broke down.
TACO trading encounters problems
Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO) strategy guided market behavior for much of 2025. Traders bought every dip caused by Trump and expected a turnaround a few days later. That plan often worked during trade crises with China, Canada, and the EU.
But everything changed last week. Trump postponed his deadline to strike against Iran's energy infrastructure from March 27 to April 6. The market rally never came.
Barclays strategist Emmanuel Cau said that Trump's constant swings damaged market confidence. Investors stopped seeing delays as a step toward peace. Instead, they saw pauses as signs that larger conflicts could arise.
Atlanta's Fed GDPNow tool lowered the growth forecast for Q1 to 2% from 3.1% a month earlier.
At the same time, CME FedWatch data shows that markets expect unchanged interest rates until the end of 2026, with little chance of any change.
This is far from the many interest rate cuts investors hoped for at the beginning of the year.
Ghalibaf and the warning about the bond market
Ghalibaf, former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and now Iran's most visible political leader during the war, went further than just denying talks with the USA.
He told his followers that Trump's posts before the market opens often concern taking profits.
“News or ‘truth’ before the market opens is often just a way to take profits. It is actually a reverse indicator. Do the opposite,” wrote Ghalibaf.
At the same time, Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke said that bond traders have turned against Trump due to the pressures from both the tariff war and the conflict with Iran.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has risen to 4.46%, near the threshold of 4.5% that forced Trump to pause tariffs in April 2025.
Ghalibaf also warned earlier in the week that financial institutions buying U.S. Treasury bonds could be legitimate military targets.
That statement made the geopolitical risks in the bond market even clearer.
Why the old strategy no longer works
The TACO strategy worked because Trump's trading partners were rational economic actors. China, the EU, and Canada wanted stability and agreed to compromises to save face.
Iran does not operate that way. The country's supreme leader was killed in the initial attacks.
Iran has had its military infrastructure attacked several times, but Tehran has still not initiated any negotiations. Ghalibaf himself accused Washington on Sunday of planning a ground invasion, while publicly stating that talks are ongoing.
Brent oil is above 110 USD per barrel and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Therefore, the economic damages from the war are already factored into the prices.
The investors who relied on the TACO argument now face a market where geopolitical risks are a permanent part, not just temporary peaks.
The question for next week will be whether the 10-year rate over 4.5% forces the White House to act, as during last year's tariff crisis, or if a real war proves harder to exit than a trade conflict.