We’ve had over a full month of what seems like once-hourly bogus headlines and constant whipsawing markets. It has been impossible to decipher noise from signal among all the tweets, press conferences, news articles, etc.
We’ve won the war five times over and negotiations are going great, but we’re also going to deploy ground troops and send over some more aircraft carriers. The constant back and forth has made traditional markets feel much more speculative than normal, at least to me. Doesn’t help that the administration is blatantly insider trading right in front of us.
A @gbrew24 has observed, some version of this statement has been said virtually every day now since the very start of the war. https://t.co/JlHWcfs0Cm
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 31, 2026
Of course, U.S. equities and other assets have flows completely unrelated to this conflict, but even global commodity markets are making outsized moves based on random Truth Social posts.
Last Thursday, Brent crude futures shot down more than 4% in two minutes after Trump posted they were “pausing” strikes on energy facilities for 10 days (They struck a petrochemical plant just yesterday). Nonetheless, this had nothing to do with getting the Strait open or settling a deal with Iran. By Friday, crude was making new highs and stocks were making new lows.
Today, an old headline about Iran being willing to make a deal somehow resurfaced as new, causing a 5% sell-off in Brent within a few minutes. Nothing valuable was shared. Iran has already said they have terms they want in order to make a deal. And we know the U.S. is unlikely to agree to these terms. So, nothing happened. Crude probably continues making new highs.
Trying to paint a picture from all of these headlines and market moves is not going to happen. Prediction markets, however, have kept a very level head. The real-time truth oracles have really shown their value throughout this conflict, and you can probably gain an edge just from paying attention to them.
If we pull up the top-traded markets for a ceasefire, they barely reacted to either event. Especially today’s headline, let alone the barrage over the past few weeks. 
A bit less volume traded, but another market that hasn’t flinched much:
These have proven incredibly useful for anyone around the world who needs a sensible picture of what is really going on. Probably 100x more useful to an Iranian citizen than any Iranian news outlet or Truth Social post.
It’s becoming much harder to trust what you read in today’s world of global leaders and governments pushing out random headlines on social media, often with the intention to move markets. Generative AI will only make it easier to create convincing content at scale. There has never been a greater need for monetized knowledge machines.