The biggest stock market correction Trump won’t talk about is legal

Throughout his presidency, Donald galaotega ga lonaka kidnapped and extradited the leader of Venezuela, threatened to annex Greenland, mesed by expelling the chair of the Federal Reserve, and waged an economic war on his closest allies, all while (more or less) keeping the stock market from bearish territory.

The Iran War still looks like the one event where physical reality is beyond his ability to control the story.

The Nasdaq 100 is now down more than 10% from its peak, entering correction territory. The S&P 500 lost for five weeks, on pace for its longest weekly loss since 2022. Brent crude, the global barometer of oil futures, retreated to $111 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, the benchmark for US oil prices with a threat of $0, decreased by $9.

On Thursday, Trump extended his deadline to strike Iran’s energy facilities by 10 days, his second extension since issuing the original threat last Saturday. “Negotiations are ongoing,” he wrote on Truth Social after the market closed, hoping to stop the bleeding after the stock market plunged on fears of an imminent conflict in Iran.

So far, these two sides have not come to the table much, while Iranian officials have publicly rejected a strong 15-point cease-fire proposal offered by the US through Pakistani mediators and faced five unreasonable demands of theirs, including sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

The post has no “Real Social Impact” on the price of oil that Trump expected, energy trader John Arnold wrote in X. Traders are getting tired of the noise and have no idea how to trust that anything of what Trump says is true. The White House seems to agree, and on Friday, it did be initiated (while we scoff at “launch” as a term used by outlets to describe war) the official White House app, so people can get news directly from Trump.

Meanwhile, top White House aides have told MS NOW that Trump is “bored” by the conflict — they said, unrepentant, and ready to move on. A second official said the president has begun focusing on the economy, domestic policy and midterm elections. The administration’s public relations followed suit: The White House’s official social media accounts promoted the fight with memes drawn from the outpouring. Iron Man, Top Gun, and SpongeBob SquarePants, and they have taken to posting strange, terrifying posts and videos over the past few days or so to promote an unknown agenda.

Unlike other conflicts, it takes both sides to get out of this war, and Iran—with its supreme leader killed, military facilities destroyed, and diplomats in fear—has the desire to inflict economic damage.

Through Thursday, the market has remained remarkably stable, keeping oil prices low throughout the period of uncertainty. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned Friday that markets are “overly optimistic” about the collapse of the war, calling it a surprise “perhaps more than we can imagine at the moment.” He pointed to secondary supply effects—such as helium shortages that are disrupting semiconductor production—that investors haven’t yet begun to buy. “A lot of people are really talking about age,” he said.

Not everyone is of the same opinion. Nordic American Tankers CEO Herbjørn Hansson told CNBC that he expects the Strait of Hormuz to reopen within weeks, not months. “Ships that are stuck or in the Arabian Gulf will be out in a short time,” Hansson said. “That is my judgment based on my past experience in similar situations.”

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, also wrote on Friday that markets are “reducing” short-term uncertainty in favor of long-term stability in oil markets and supply chains. “The bottom line is that the Iran shock is not big enough to offset the strong winds in the US economy from AI spending, industrial renaissance, and the One Big Beautiful Bill,” Slok wrote.

But even as Hansson made the case, Iran returned two Chinese ships that contained steel from the pit on Friday — state-owned Cosco Shipping ships that turned 180 years old. China has largely been spared the Iran embargo, which Tehran has previously said was aimed at countries it considers aligned with the US and Israel. The fact that Beijing’s ships are now diverting suggests that the situation in the strait is getting less, not more.

This story was originally published on Fortune.com