The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), is investigating 13 Democrat-run states for allegedly forcing employers’ health insurance plans to cover abortions. Officials say these rules trample the Weldon Amendment’s federal conscience protections. 

The Weldon amendment blocks states from punishing health insurers, plans, or providers who refuse to pay for, provide, or refer for abortions on moral or religious grounds, and has appeared in every HHS spending bill alongside the Hyde Amendment since 2005.

“OCR launches these investigations to address certain states’ alleged disregard of, or confusion about, compliance with the Weldon Amendment,” Paula M. Stannard, HHS Director of the Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement. “Under the Weldon Amendment, health care entities, such as health insurance issuers and health plans, are protected from state discrimination for not paying for, or providing coverage of, abortion contrary to conscience. Period.”

The states targeted in the investigation are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, all of which require state-regulated plans to include abortion coverage without any exceptions.

HHS framed the investigation as the Trump administration delivering on a core promise. “Today’s announcement advances an Administration promise, corrects misguided legal interpretations of laws that OCR enforces, and builds on HHS’ recent efforts to enforce conscience rights and protect human life.” The office sent letters this week demanding details from the states. Non-compliance could result in billions of dollars in Medicaid funds being withheld.

This isn’t the Trump administration’s first rodeo either.

During his first term, Trump’s HHS Department hit California with a Notice of Violation over its abortion mandate, threatening to withhold $200 million per quarter in Medicaid funding. In 2021, the Biden administration quietly reversed course, claiming in a letter that the Weldon Amendment’s definition of a “health care entity” was narrower than Trump officials had interpreted, saying churches and religious groups didn’t count—effectively gutting federal conscience protections.

Now, Trump’s HHS has disavowed the Biden-era interpretation.

“We believe that it reflected an unduly narrow reading of the statute. We also disavowed downstream impacts of the legal position taken in 2021, which imposed certain requirements on complainants of protected parties that were not grounded in the state statute,” an HHS official said. “And by publicly repudiating that 2021 letter, we informed states and other entities, including those protected by this by the Weldon amendment, that they should no longer rely on this now repeated legal position.”

Blue-state governors are furious. “This is the latest effort by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy to take away women’s reproductive rights,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “In Massachusetts, we’re focused on making sure everyone can access and afford the health care services they need, including abortion care. We’re not going to be intimidated by this investigation, and we are going to continue protecting women’s access to reproductive health care.” 

New Jersey’s Rep. Mikie Sherrill branded it “nothing but a fishing expedition wasting taxpayers’ money.” She insisted, “New Jersey requires health insurance plans to follow all applicable laws, including protecting women’s reproductive freedom.”

It only took a constant barrage of negative news surrounding the private credit space, including a surge in redemptions, investor gating, questions about loan markets as well as outright fraud, not to mention relentless criticism from of some of the biggest luminaries in credit, including Saba’s Boaz Weinstein and Diameter’s Scott Goodwin, for Blackstone to concede that its private credit book may have been mismarked.

According to Bloomberg, Blackstone’s flagship private credit fund – and the world’s largest – posted its first monthly loss in more than three years, one of the clearest signs yet of weakening performance in the $1.8 trillion market.

The $83 billion fund, known as BCRED, lost 0.4% in February, the first monthly decline since September 2022. Performance was flat for the first two months of the year after an 8% gain in 2025, the website shows. While we haven’t done the math, we wonder what that means in terms of BCRED’s Sharpe ratio, and how that compares to, say, Bernie Madoff’s while the music was still playing (not when it had already stopped, of course). 

Blackstone told investors its February loss reflected wider spreads across public and private markets, as well as unrealized marks on individual names including Medallia, according to a message to financial advisers seen by Bloomberg.

In the message, Blackstone pointed out that despite the pullback, the fund outperformed the leveraged loan market by around 0.4 percentage points in February and 1 percentage point since the start of the year, which it said underscored the benefits of private credit during volatile markets.

“BCRED continues to deliver strong performance for its investors, with a 9.5% annualized total return since inception for Class I shares,” a spokesperson for the firm said in an emailed statement. The fund was set up in January 2021.

Blackstone disclosed in February that it had marked down the value of its loan to Medallia Inc., a software company owned by Thoma Bravo, to 78 cents on the dollar. The loan has become a weak spot for private credit lenders, exposing sharp differences in valuations across managers.

BCRED is among a number of private credit vehicles that have faced elevated redemptions in recent quarters, amid concerns about valuations and underwriting standards in credit markets, as well as the potential for artificial intelligence to disrupt software businesses.

As reported previously, the alternative asset manager also took the unusual step of using its own cash as well as contributions from senior leaders to meet redemption requests for BCRED that exceeded the fund’s previously set limit of 5% of net assets.

Now that Blackstone’s own money is flowing out to investors to avoid gating, it is understandable that Blackstone’s President and COO Jon Gray would make a full-throated defense of the private credit space, declining marks notwithstanding, and he did just that at a recent annual meeting with top financial advisors, saying that since private credit represents mostly “lowly leveraged vehicles that made low, 40% loan-to-value loans to very good quality companies“, even 15% default rates and 50% recoveries wouldn’t lead to a crisis, especially since BCRED has already remarked itself to 97, when the mathematical worst case scenario using those assumptions is 92.5, or 7.5 points of loss.

At an annual meeting with top financial advisors, $BX‘s Jon Gray explains why the math doesn’t add up on some of the predictions around private credit. Watch: pic.twitter.com/Kx8Fx4aYrh

— Blackstone (@blackstone) March 20, 2026

Judging by the collapsing prices of private credit names in the space, the market does not exactly agree. 

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Australia’s largest ammonia plant will be shut for two months to repair damage caused by a power outage, amidst a global supply crunch for the vital fertiliser and explosives ingredient.

To say that the shutdown comes at the worst possible time for the global fertilizer market would be an understatement: more than a quarter of the world’s traded ammonia flows through the Strait of Hormuz, as do 43% of urea shipments, the fertilizer made from ammonia. As we discussed in recent days, that flow has been cut to a trickle as Iran blockaded the SoH, as have vital gas supplies, causing fertilizer plants in India to shut.

Adding insult to injury, last week Yara’s Pilbara plant, which uses gas to produce 850,000 tonnes of ammonia a year, suffered a power outage, damaging equipment, BoilingCold reports.

A spokesman for the Norwegian company said workers and the environment were unaffected, and initial assessments indicated repairs could take about two months.

“Yara well understands the importance of its products to customers and will work to bring the operations back online as soon as practical,” he said.

An adjacent plant, half-owned by Australia’s Orica, uses 140,000 tonnes of the ammonia to make the explosive technical ammonium nitrate (TAN) for WA’s mining sector. The remaining ammonia is shipped to Australian and international customers, and much of it is used to make urea fertilizer.

The shutdown could not have come at a worse time for Australia’s farmers, who last year imported 1.2 million tonnes of urea in April and May for use before or shortly after seeding. Three-quarters came from the Gulf nations, where shipping is now severely curtailed after the United States and Israel attacked Iran.

Australia’s largest export could also be affected. For the next two months, WA’s iron ore miners no longer have 330,000 tonnes a year of TAN produced on their doorstep. The explosive is used in vast quantities to blast rock so it can be collected, crushed and shipped to port.

The degree of disruption to production, if any, will depend on the stocks of TAN the miners hold and whether they can source other supplies at short notice.

Wesfarmers subsidiary CSBP runs WA’s second-largest ammonia plant in Kwinana near Perth. CSBP uses Kwinana’s 255,000 tonnes a year output and additional imported ammonia to make ammonium nitrate for fertilisers and explosives.

CSBP would not say if any of its imported ammonia came from Yara.

“It is standard business practice for us to continually monitor and manage our supply chain to ensure we meet customer demand,” a company spokeswoman said.

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker sharply criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) following the group’s significant spending in the March 17 Illinois primary elections.

In an interview with The Associated Press on March 18, Pritzker said AIPAC has strayed from its original mission as a bipartisan organization focused on strengthening U.S.-Israel relations.

“It became an organization that was supporting [President] Donald Trump and people who follow Donald Trump,” Pritzker said. “AIPAC really is not an organization that I think today I would want any part of.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to AIPAC for comment.

Pritzker, a Jewish Democrat, had been a major donor to AIPAC more than a decade ago.

AIPAC, along with other outside groups, spent roughly $70 million on six open U.S. House and Senate races across Illinois.

In his interview, Pritzker characterized the spending as “interference.”

Many of the races that opened up by retirements became testing grounds for key issues facing Democrats ahead of 2026.

These included U.S. policy toward Israel, as well as emerging topics such as cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.

Debates over U.S. involvement in the Israel-Hamas conflict—and more recently tensions over Iran—also played a major role in several contests.

In a crowded 10-candidate Democratic primary for Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District, AIPAC backed Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, who ultimately secured the nomination.

However, its preferred candidate in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, a heavily Jewish district north of Chicago, state Sen. Laura Fine, lost to Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss.

While Pritzker supports Israel, he has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership.

He reiterated his support for a two-state solution, emphasizing the need for “havens” for both Israelis and Palestinians.

“I do not know why the United States has walked away from that,” Pritzker said, adding that Trump “doesn’t seem to understand how to create Middle East peace” and has instead pursued military action, including recent moves involving Iran.

“Are we going to now take military adventures across the world to take out leaders who we think are bad for their countries?” Pritzker added.

“If so, we’re going to be involved in a whole lot of wars going forward.”

Pritzker also contributed at least $5 million to support Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s Senate campaign.

Stratton won the Democratic nomination over Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who had led in fundraising, and Robin Kelly (D-Ill.).

Outside groups spent more than $16 million backing Stratton, while another $11 million was spent opposing her.

Despite his financial support, Pritzker said Stratton’s victory was due to her own strengths as a candidate.

“She stood on her own two feet, and people saw that she’s real and she’s going to be a fighter for us in Washington,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D- NY) campaign splashed close to $19,000 in campaign funds last year to a Boston-area psychiatrist affiliated with a chain of clinics that specialize in ketamine-based treatments for mental-health conditions, according to the New York Post.

Disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign committee made three payments totaling $18,725 in 2025 to Dr. Brian Boyle, chief psychiatric officer at Stella Mental Health. The expenditures were recorded as “leadership training and consulting”: $11,550 in March, $2,800 in May and $4,375 in October.

Dr. Boyle, a Harvard Medical School graduate who previously served as an attending psychiatrist at McLean Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, focuses on interventional psychiatry. Stella Mental Health offers treatments including intravenous ketamine infusions, Spravato nasal spray, transcranial magnetic stimulation and other approaches aimed at conditions such as treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. The clinics market these services to patients who have not responded to conventional therapies, and ketamine-based options have gained attention in recent years among certain professional and celebrity circles seeking alternative mental-health interventions, the Post reports.

It’s unclear whether the money was actually spent on ketamine therapy as the expenses were mysteriously labeled as “leadership training and consulting,” the Post said.

Ketamine, originally developed as an anesthetic, has shown promise in providing rapid symptom relief for some patients with severe, treatment-resistant depression, according to clinical studies. The only FDA-approved ketamine-derived medication for psychiatric use is esketamine nasal spray, Spravato, first cleared in 2019 as an adjunct to oral antidepressants for treatment-resistant depression. In early 2025, the agency expanded approval to allow its use as a monotherapy for adults who have not responded adequately to at least two prior oral antidepressants.

Administration of Spravato remains tightly regulated under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy program, requiring supervised use in certified healthcare settings, post-dose monitoring for at least two hours due to potential side effects such as dissociation, sedation and elevated blood pressure, and restrictions on driving.

Off-label intravenous ketamine infusions, such as those offered by clinics like Stella, lack the same level of FDA approval and long-term safety data. While some patients report substantial short-term benefits, medical experts and regulators have raised concerns about overhype, variable evidence for sustained efficacy, risks of dependency in vulnerable populations, and potential for misuse. Critics, including specialists at institutions such as Yale and the Cleveland Clinic, have pointed to limited longitudinal studies and questions about whether the treatments deliver lasting reductions in suicide risk or serve primarily as a temporary bridge.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Education (ED) jointly announced a new partnership under which the Treasury will assume responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt, according to a March 19 joint statement from the departments.

The Federal Student Assistance Partnership will enhance the administration of student aid programs, mitigate any fallout and cost to taxpayers from mismanagement of the federal student loan portfolio, and facilitate the return of defaulted borrowers to repayment.

“As student loan debt nears $1.7 Trillion, it’s clear that [the ED] was never intended to serve as our nation’s fifth largest bank,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a March 19 post on X. “That’s exactly why we are partnering with [the Treasury] to restore fiscal sanity and better align student aid programs with students, families, and borrowers.”

According to the statement, the Treasury will provide operational support to the ED’s efforts to return borrowers to repayment.

McMahon said that Treasury’s finance expertise will be leveraged to activate “functioning programs” that manage student loan borrowers who are in default.

Treasury has the unique experience, the operational capability, and the financial expertise to bring long overdue financial discipline to the program and be better stewards of taxpayer dollars,” U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said of the new partnership.

Dismantling Education Department

The latest move by the ED is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal department and return the function of education to the states.

McMahon had previously announced transferring certain key responsibilities to other government departments.

On Nov. 18, McMahon said that federal grant administration for K–12 schools and universities, including workforce development initiatives but not student loans, will be moved to the Department of Labor.

During a White House briefing on Nov. 20, McMahon said that the Labor Department’s system for grant administration is far more efficient than that used by the Education Department and would make the federal grant process more efficient.

The Interior Department will assume responsibilities over education programs that serve tribal schools serving Native American students, and the Health and Human Services Department, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will head the accreditation process for foreign medical schools and federally funded child programs serving parents enrolled in colleges.

Moreover, the State Department will oversee international education and foreign language programs.

McMahon had also alluded to certain functions related to civil rights to be taken over by the Justice Department, but this has not yet been confirmed.

The National Education Association teachers’ union issued a statement on Nov. 18 calling the departmental moves “illegal, cruel, and shameful.”

“Not only do they want to starve and steal from our students—they want to rob them of their futures,” Becky Pringle, the organization’s president, said. “Nothing is more important than the success of our students, and America’s educators and parents will not be silent as Trump and Linda McMahon turn their backs on our students, families, and communities to pay for billionaire tax cuts.”

Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for Protect Borrowers, said in a statement on March 18 regarding the Treasury’s takeover of student loans: “Student loan borrowers are entitled to unique and important rights under the Higher Education Act—which has too often been denied as a result of incompetence and corruption. Policymakers should have major concerns about this transfer and how it will exacerbate borrower confusion and push relief further out of reach.”

“We call on Congress to engage in critical oversight and demand information on how the Trump Administration will guarantee that the Treasury is equipped with the staff and expertise necessary to support our most vulnerable borrowers and ensure they are able to access the rights afforded to them under the Higher Education Act,” she said.

According to the latest statement, the ED’s student loan portfolio stands at nearly $1.7 trillion, with fewer than 40 percent of borrowers in repayment and almost 25 percent of borrowers in default.

The financial debt owed by students is roughly twice the size of all American university endowments combined, which is approximately $927 billion. It also eclipses the nation’s cumulative credit card debt and auto debt.

“The Federal Student Assistance Partnership marks an intentional and historic step toward breaking up the Federal education bureaucracy and dramatically improving the administration of Federal student aid programs that millions of American students, families, and borrowers rely on to access higher education,” said McMahon.

Besides collecting on defaulted student debt, the Treasury will also provide support for non-defaulted debt, as permitted by law.

Do certain groups of people deliberately seek out chaos?  Do they revel in it so much that they choose to create it from thin air wherever they go?  Or, are they completely unaware of the destruction that follows them around?  One thing is certain – they obviously don’t care about how it affects the people around them.  

Spring Break in Florida has always been a wild affair attracting masses of young vacationers from across the US to white sandy beaches, condos and the night life.  Decades ago, the locals were complaining just as they are now, but in recent years the demographics have changed dramatically and with this change comes the inevitable increase in random criminal violence.  It’s not just loud parties and DUIs anymore.

BREAKING – Shocking video of what spring break in Daytona Beach, Florida, looks like in 2026 compared to the early 2000s is going viral, showing what were once nice, peaceful beach parties being turned into gangland for black teens and guns. pic.twitter.com/TYhdTDx4Xw

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) March 19, 2026

Some residents are now referring to these incidents as “Ghetto Spring Break”.  With the demographic being pushed out of traditional getaways like Miami Beach due to higher fees and restrictions, they have surged into alternatives like Fort Lauderdale and Daytona Beach.  This has led to skyrocketing crime and essentially unusable tourist spots. 

#News | Four shootings and massive unruly crowds turned Daytona Beach’s spring-break weekend into a public safety nightmare, as thousands fled the sand while police from multiple agencies rushed in to restore order. pic.twitter.com/ffaeLjxswR

— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) March 16, 2026

A large percentage of the crime is committed by minors and college age vacationers.  Underage teens roam in massive groups unaccompanied by parents is a common scene.  Authorities made more than 130 arrests last weekend, including 84 in Daytona Beach and 49 in New Smyrna Beach.  Officials say they specifically plan to bring the hammer down on “takeover events” which involve spontaneous parties announced on social media that takeover random streets, beaches or city blocks.  Such events usually end with violence. 

Spring Break 2026 in Daytona Beach.

Anyone want to guess how long it’ll take before the implement a curfew? pic.twitter.com/NtaBEyD4aU

— Braeden (@BraedenSorbo) March 17, 2026

NEW: Brawl Turns Into Shooting During Daytona Beach Spring Break, Leaving One Injured

Volusia County reported three separate shootings in Daytona this weekend that left two spring breakers injured.

Bystanders caught the brawl on video; it quickly escalated into a shooting,… https://t.co/m2P6tPaRfg pic.twitter.com/p0KSqlJvmQ

— The Facts Dude 🤙🏽 (@Thefactsdude) March 15, 2026

Daytona has been forced to declare a state of emergency and implement sweeping restrictions including a youth curfew from 8pm to 6am and zero-tolerance enforcement for violence, fighting, disorderly conduct, etc.  Authorities have responded with a heavy police presence.

Similar measures have been used to great effect in deterring the “usual suspects” from showing up to certain cities during the season.  The fatigue is very real, so much so that some traditional travel destinations are willing to sacrifice some tourist dollars in order to avoid gaining a reputation as a spring break cesspool.  

For example, violent crime reports and arrests for spring break used to make up 20% of Miami’s yearly total, and this spike occurred in the span of just a couple of weeks.  Miami, dealing with dozens of shootings per season and thousands of arrests, decided to start cracking down on festivities in 2025. 

New measures included parking garage closures in South Beach, restricted beach access (e.g., certain entrances closing at 6 p.m.), sobriety checkpoints, potential curfews, high parking fees ($100 in some areas), no coolers/tents/tables/loud music on the beach, increased police presence and targeted road closures.  Incidents are down 21% so far this year, and there are no reported spring break related shootings. 

Florida cities are no longer embracing the concept of “grinning and bearing” this kind of tourist influx in exchange for quick cash.  The new regulations and fees also prove that cities are capable, to some extend, of filtering out the worst perpetrators of seasonal crime.  The first step to eliminating mindless mobs is to stop enabling mindless mobs. 

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Update (1845ET): After an initial kneejerk higher in oil and lower in stocks, things have settled a little with both hovering around unch…

Brent is sliding a little from Friday’s highs…

Equity futs are back around unch…

There’s a long way til dawn…

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Following a weekend where geopolitical headlines swung from “winding down” (Friday after the close) to threats, deadlines, and “obliteration” tit-for-tat talk suggesting no end in sight, it is perhaps no surprise that oil prices are up (and so equity futures are down) as we open Sunday night.

WTI topped $100 again (but is fading back a little from the opening spike)…

Futs are down around 1-1.5% from the after-hours highs on Friday…

10Y TSY futs are down, implying around a 4-5bps rise in yields…

Gold is flat, holding around $4500 (after its worst week in 43 years).

Bitcoin has been sliding all weekend and is back below $68k now…

Investors are finally beginning to price-in the Iran conflict as a longer energy shock, not a temporary geopolitical scare.

With no end in sight, Goldman Sachs trader, Shreeti Kapa says it feels like market has started to reflect inflation risk from a transient energy shock but not really growth downside from a longer lasting shock.

Markets have mostly priced a rate shock but limited growth risks.

This is much in contrast to the energy shock in 2022, which also led to a much larger negative rate shock as real yields sharply increased from negative levels

This reflects a belief still that the war & resulting energy disruptions will be relatively short-lived.

If that confidence is misplaced and the energy price increases prove more durable, markets will need to price in a more significant hit to global growth and earnings & inevitably more significant drawdown in global equities.

As Bloomberg macro strategist, Michael Ball, highlighted earlier, higher energy costs are inflationary and act as a tax on consumers, margins and confidence.

That helps explain why central banks talked tougher this week, causing markets to price a shift to more restrictive path for global monetary policy. Traders moved quickly, pricing in ECB and Bank of England tightening and taking out all the Fed’s easing this year. At one point, bets even emerged for a Fed rate hike.

Central bankers don’t want to repeat the mistakes of 2021 and 2022 by being late to act and erring in their assessment of the strength and duration of inflation. But rate hikes get harder to deliver as growth weakens and labor markets loosen, especially because financial conditions often tighten well before the first move is actually made.

The rates market is already hinting at that tension. The front-end repricing story overshadows any clean duration selloff as policy-error fears begin to show. Hawkish rhetoric can lift two-year yields fast. It’s much harder to persuade the long end that economies can absorb a full tightening cycle on top of a prolonged energy shock.

So now, the only question that really matters is how long the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed.

Simply put, the answer to everything depends on one binary variable –  duration of the war.

That in turn depends if there will be safe transit of oil vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Even if the strait is opened, would we be able to restore oil flows to pre-conflict levels? What is the guarantee for safe passage? Can any ceasefire be trusted? For how long would that hold?  

As Goldman’s Kapa explains, the core problem with binary risk is that traditional diversification doesn’t help much – you can’t diversify away a single exogenous event that reprices everything simultaneously. So the playbook will need to shift from optimizing the portfolio to structuring it around the outcome tree

Few ways to think about it 

• Barbell – own the tails & reduce the middle. As an example long energy, defense, defensives, high quality, secular themes on the “conflict persists” side. Long the high beta, cyclicals, rate-sensitive, consumer discretionary  themes on the “quick resolution side”. Underweight everything that needs a benign middle path like expensive stuff that needs both low rates AND strong earnings! 

• Reduce gross, not just net – In a binary, your net view matters less than your sizing. Even a high conviction directional call can be wrong if the binary resolves the other way. The smart move is cutting gross exposure so the wrong outcome doesn’t impair capital – thus preserving the ability to reload once the binary resolves 

• Own the resolution not the anticipation – Historically best entry point in geopolitical binaries is just after the resolution – not before. Holding dry powder and waiting for binary to resolve is often better risk-adjusted than guessing direction beforehand 

• Options – use options rather than one-delta positioning to capture left & right tails. Conscious at current VIX levels, this is rather expensive 

The options market has just cleared one of the largest structural events of the quarter, as Friday’s OPEX saw nearly $1.4 trillion in delta notional expire for the S&P 500.

But as SpotGamma explains, because significant positions have now rolled off from the March expiration, the market has lost an important stabilizing force just as macro pressures begin to build.

The loss of stabilizing positioning from March OPEX comes at a particularly precarious moment.

SPX has broken below the 6,600 Put Wall, closing Friday at 6,506 and now down over 7% from January highs.

These dynamics may finally put the nail in the coffin on the range-bound environment we observed at the start of 2026.

Even in the best case scenario, this tell us that we’re not out of the woods yet. The worst case scenario tells us to hold on tight.

At least through quarter-end, major indices appear increasingly susceptible to larger directional moves.

While this volatility could manifest in terms of dramatic upside as well as downside, heightened put skew indicates that traders are largely hedging against the threat of a continued selloff.

Bear in mind that President Trump’s 48hr deadline is set to end tomorrow (Monday) night at ~7pm EST.

Markets have not capitulated yet, but the slow daily derisking may be more troubling as investors increasingly throw in the towel and price a higher chance of stagflation the longer the war drags on.

So, with all that in mind, Goldman’s Kapa notes, binary risk environments reward optionality and liquidity over conviction.

Investors that do well in such instances aren’t ones that call the bottom correctly, they are the ones who had cash to deploy when uncertainty cleared.

Given near zero equity risk premium and all time high valuations across regions & sectors today, cash is actually a reasonable asymmetric position – you give up almost nothing in expected return and gain significant flexibility !

Professional subscribers can read much more from Goldman’s Sales & Trading team here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

*  *  * PSST

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill on March 20 suspending the state’s gasoline tax for 60 days, the first such move taken by a U.S. state since the U.S.–Israeli war with Iran began in late February.

The legislation, dubbed HB 1199, will temporarily suspend Georgia’s fuel taxes—33.3 cents per gallon on gasoline and 37.3 cents per gallon on diesel—for 60 days, which took effect immediately after Kemp’s approval.

The governor signed a separate bill into law on the same day, authorizing a one-time special income tax rebate of up to $250 for single filers, $375 for heads of households, and $500 for couples, according to a statement.

Eligible taxpayers in Georgia could receive the tax rebate within six to eight weeks, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue.

“Hardworking Georgians know best how to spend their money, not the government,” Kemp said in the statement announcing his approval of the two bills.

“That’s why I’m proud to sign these bills and, along with the General Assembly, deliver meaningful tax relief on top of the other measures we’ve taken in recent years,” the governor added.

Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, said in a separate statement that the legislation would deliver nearly $1.2 billion in state income tax refunds to taxpayers.

“The two bills signed today provide significant and immediate tax relief and further our commitment to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Jones said in the statement.

Georgia has sought to help residents manage rising oil costs as the national average price for a gallon of gas reached $3.91 on March 20, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime chokepoint for global oil and gas shipments, has been disrupted since the United States and Israel began military operations against Iran on Feb. 28 and Tehran retaliated by firing missiles and drones at Israel and U.S. military assets and targets across Gulf nations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on March 18 that President Donald Trump had issued a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act, a federal law that requires shipments between U.S. points to be carried on U.S.-built vessels.

Leavitt said the temporary waiver was intended to “mitigate the short-term disruptions” in the oil market as U.S.-Israeli military operations, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, in Iran continue.

“This action will allow vital resources like oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and coal to flow freely to U.S. ports for sixty days, and the Administration remains committed to continuing to strengthen our critical supply chains,” Leavitt wrote on X.

A number of countries have signaled support for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open after Trump called on nations to assist in policing the waterway, where Iranian attacks have essentially halted commercial traffic.

Leaders from multiple countries—including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Romania, Bahrain, and Lithuania—issued a joint statement on March 20 saying they were prepared to contribute to “appropriate efforts” to ensure safe passage through the strait.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints, with about 20 percent of global oil supplies passing through the waterway.

*  *  * LAST ONE, I’M LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge on March 20 issued an order blocking the Trump administration’s media access policy at the Pentagon after The New York Times sued over the restrictions.

The Department of War tightened its rules for the media in September 2025 after officials said reporters were roaming the halls of the Pentagon. The department took the position that the restrictions were reasonable and designed to safeguard national security.

The new rules provided that soliciting non-public information from department personnel or encouraging employees to break the law “falls outside the scope of protected newsgathering activities.” They also stated that reporters would be denied press passes if officials determined they posed a safety or security risk.

Most members of the Pentagon press corps declined to sign an acknowledgement of the new policy and lost their press passes.

In December 2025, The New York Times sued, arguing that the policy violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment by restricting “journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done—ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman wrote in his new ruling that the drafters of the First Amendment “believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech.”

“That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”

Friedman held that the Pentagon press policy ran afoul of both the First and Fifth Amendments.

Friedman repeated a comment he made in open court in which he said the federal government has been dishonest in its communications with the public about military matters in the past.

“We’ve been through, in my lifetime, you know, the Vietnam War, where the public, I think it’s fair to say, was lied to about a lot of things. We’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through the Kuwait situation, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay.”

The judge also wrote that the department could not show that it would be harmed by the cancellation of the policy, which the judge said was vague and “fails to provide fair notice of what routine, lawful journalistic practices will result in the detail, suspension, or revocation” of a press pass.

The policy’s “true purpose and practical effect” was “to weed out disfavored journalists—those who were not, in the Department’s view, ‘on board and willing to serve,’—and replace them with news entities that are,” he wrote.

Washington-based Friedman issued a permanent injunction preventing the department from enforcing the challenged restrictions. The judge also ordered the department to reinstate the credentials of six reporters and to file a status report with the court by March 27 certifying compliance with its order.

The New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said the media organization “welcomes today’s ruling, which enforces the constitutionally protected rights for the free press in this country.”

“Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars. Today’s ruling reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public’s behalf.”

The Epoch Times reached out for comment from the U.S. Department of Justice, which represents federal agencies in court. No reply was received by publication time.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.