Roadmap 2 Wealth Newsletter | 3/22/2026

With the indexes down for the fourth straight week, this felt like a week of stress management more than a normal investing environment. Stocks falling along with borrowing costs rising is a sign of fears growing in the market. Investors are thinking more about what is going to be the big shot, potentially a black swan event and are less focused on the stories of the companies.

The main thing hanging over the market was oil. When the price of oil, it doesn’t stay in the energy sector. It spreads throughout the global economy. It hits the gas pump, shipping costs, flight tickets, groceries, etc., causing inflation. That’s why the market got nervous. If oil stays high, it makes it harder for inflation to keep falling, and that matters because lower inflation is what gives the Fed room to cut rates. The market showed this week there’s less confidence in the Fed’s ability to cut rates. See the significant spike in oil prices since the conflict in Iran:

And you could see that fear show up in the 10-year Treasury yield rising. Interest rates don’t just move only move when the Fed moves them. That’s not how it works. The 10-year is the market’s opinion about future inflation, growth, and risk. So when it rises, it means investors are demanding more return to lend money for 10 years because they’re not as confident about what the next few months will look like. Higher yields also put pressure on stock prices because they raise borrowing costs and make future profits “worth less” in today’s dollars.

This week had another factor that made the swings feel bigger than normal. Big options and futures contracts were expiring, which tends to create extra noise and exaggerated moves late in the week. This made the trading environment have more tension.

One of the biggest moments this week was what happened with Super Micro $SMCI ( ▲ 0.85% ) . U.S. prosecutors charged three people tied to the company in an alleged scheme to divert billions of dollars of AI server technology to China as they tried to work around U.S. export rules.

Why does that matter for investors? Because it’s a reminder that the AI boom isn’t just about “who has the best chips.” It’s also about who can sell them legally, who can ship them safely, and who can stay clean with regulators. When that trust gets questioned, a stock can get hit fast—sometimes in a way that has nothing to do with whether the products are good. The stock tumbled as a result.

The biggest real-world economic update was gas prices. They’ve risen fast, and fast price moves are what changes behavior. When people pay more at the pump, they don’t always panic but they do start adjusting. They drive less, spend a little less, and start feeling like things are tighter.

That’s important because consumer spending is the engine of the U.S. economy. If gas keeps climbing, it doesn’t just show up in your budget — it can show up in corporate earnings too.

Next week, pay attention to two types of signals:

Markets were broadly down, so “winners” mostly came from energy strength.