John Blank @johnblank100.bsky.social

Oil and Gas Leaders Meet: Global Week Ahead zacks.com/stock/news/288…

At least one product - - jet fuel - - has surpassed the $200/barrel price today. Pacific Northwestern jet fuel trading at about $4.83/gal or just under $203/bbl. California jet fuel at $4.66/gal or ~$196/bbl is next up. Book your flights early.

The national average price of gasoline in the U.S. has reached $3.90 per gallon, while diesel has climbed to $5.09 per gallon. It now looks like gasoline will hit $4/gal next week and could head toward $4.10/gal and beyond.

Central Banks to Muddle Through: Global Week Ahead zacks.com/stock/news/288…

Goldman Sachs confirms Hormuz oil flows have collapsed from 19.5 million barrels per day to 0.5 million. Net disruption after pipeline rerouting: 17.2 million barrels per day offline. Two independent vessel trackers recorded zero oil tankers crossing the Strait on 12 March. The largest energy chokepoint on Earth is not closed by a navy. It is closed by a spreadsheet. Seven major P&I clubs cancelled war-risk coverage for the Persian Gulf effective 5th March under Solvency II protocols. Premiums for remaining voyage cover surged 300 to 1,000%, reaching 1% of hull value: $2 to $3 million per VLCC on a seven-day renewable basis. The $20 billion DFC reinsurance facility backed by Chubb has limited uptake because it excludes full P&I liability. Lloyd’s still offers single-voyage cover. Nobody is buying because the premium assumes the mines, and the mines are on the seabed. The Strait is open. The insurance is not. And without insurance, no vessel moves. While 19 million barrels per day sit stranded on either side of the chokepoint, one category of vessel continues transiting: Chinese shadow fleet tankers carrying Iranian crude settled in yuan through CIPS. Kpler confirms 11.7 to 16.5 million barrels have reached China since 28 February. These tankers do not carry Western insurance. They do not need Western insurance. They operate under Chinese state-backed coverage, Iranian IRGC safe passage, and yuan settlement through a payment system that processed $24.5 trillion in 2025 at 43% year-on-year growth. The only oil moving through Hormuz is oil that does not touch the dollar. This is the moment the petrodollar system was designed to prevent. In 1974, Saudi Arabia agreed to price oil exclusively in dollars in exchange for American military protection. That agreement created a world where every barrel required dollars, every central bank held dollar reserves because energy demanded them, and American financial hegemony rested on the simple proposition that oil equals dollars. For fifty-two years, the equation held. The 2026 war is breaking it not through policy but through physics: the insurance architecture that enabled dollar-denominated oil transit has collapsed, and the only transit still functioning operates in yuan. The dollar’s share of global reserves has fallen from 71% in 2000 to 59% today. Yuan global payments remain at 2.89%. No single event kills the petrodollar. But the Goldman data reveals what the contrarians miss: the war has created a live demonstration of a post-dollar energy system operating at scale. Chinese tankers transit. Yuan settles. CIPS clears. Iranian oil reaches Chinese refineries at $9 to $12 below Brent while Western buyers pay $96.72. The system works. It is working now. And every day the Strait remains closed to dollar shipping is another day the alternative proves it does not need the original. President Trump’s multinational warship call is the response: send navies, reopen the Strait, restore dollar-denominated traffic, and kill the yuan alternative before it scales. If the coalition succeeds, dollar pricing survives. If it fails or fragments, the war that was launched to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme will have accidentally created the conditions for the multipolar energy order the dollar was designed to prevent. The IEA has released 400 million barrels of strategic reserves, the largest coordinated draw in history. It covers 23 days of the 17.2 million barrel daily shortfall. The war is sixteen days old. The reserves are finite. The insurance cancellations are not. Nineteen million barrels per day reduced to half a million. Zero tankers on 12th March. Yuan tankers the only vessels moving. And the fifty-two-year-old system that priced every barrel in dollars is watching its replacement operate in real time through the waterway it can no longer transit. Full analysis here - open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

What Happens at $200 a Barrel? zacks.com/commentary/288…

Now? Conflict Drives Oil & Gas Prices: Global Week Ahead zacks.com/stock/news/288…

In 2026, What Gets Share Buyers Moving? Zacks MAR Strategy zacks.com/commentary/288…

David Sacks, who warned of an impending World War III every single month of the Biden presidency leading up to the 2024 election, has not commented on the ongoing war with Iran.

Risk Markets March Towards Spring: Global Week Ahead zacks.com/stock/news/287…

Israeli Channel 12 is reporting, citing unnamed intelligence sources, growing indications that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in this morning’s strikes. Not injured. Not relocated. Killed. The assessment is not based on satellite imagery. It is based on human intelligence sources inside the Iranian regime. The same sources that told Israel when the leadership gathering would happen. The same sources that provided the timing for an 8:15 a.m. daylight strike that broke every pattern of every Israeli operation against Iran in history. Israel did not bomb a building and hope. Israel struck a specific room at a specific time because someone inside that room’s security perimeter told them exactly when to strike. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded with five words: “still alive as far as I know.” That is not a denial. That is a man who does not have contact with his own Supreme Leader and is hedging in real time on live television. A foreign minister with confirmed communication to his head of state says “he is alive.” A foreign minister who has lost contact says “as far as I know.” Israel has also announced that a promised Khamenei speech to the nation, if it airs at all, will have been prerecorded. Think about what that means. Israeli intelligence is confident enough in the assessment to publicly predict that any proof of life will be fabricated. They are not waiting for confirmation. They are preemptively discrediting the denial. No Iranian state media outlet has shown Khamenei. No IRGC commander has issued a statement confirming contact with the Supreme Leader. No proof-of-life video has surfaced. Iran launched retaliatory missiles at six countries within hours of the strikes. That requires no supreme leader. That requires standing orders and panicked generals. What requires a supreme leader is what comes next: the decision to escalate to total war, activate Hormuz, or negotiate. That decision has no visible author tonight. Khamenei has ruled Iran for 35 years. He succeeded Khomeini. He built the nuclear program. He funded Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Iraqi militias. He outlasted eight American presidents. The entire architecture of the Islamic Republic, its theology, its military doctrine, its succession protocols, flows through one 86-year-old man who has not been seen or heard from since 8:15 this morning. If he is alive, one video ends this speculation in seconds. The silence is the story. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Oh my god. The regime’s Chief Justice—who executed thousands of protesters by hanging during the Woman Life Freedom uprisings and recent protests—has been eliminated. I swear on everything, his elimination is the greatest justice of all. I cannot believe this is real.

In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.

Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

The US PPI report came in hotter than expected, particularly for the core measure. January core PPI rose 0.8%, significantly surpassing the 0.3% consensus and marking the highest monthly increase since March 2022. The headline figure also exceeded expectations at 0.5% (against a 0.3% forecast). These monthly prints have pushed annual PPI inflation well above consensus estimates, especially for the core measure, which now stands at 3.6% (vs 3.0%). #economy #inflation #markets

What is the "Great Rotation"? zacks.com/commentary/287…

What is "AI" Cap-Ex Doing? zacks.com/commentary/287…

Join Chief Economist, @johnblank100, PhD., at the Zacks Research Desk as he gives us a rundown of top tickers by return in Zacks’ 16 equity sectors, plus a performance overview of 7 ETF asset classes. youtu.be/gHhPdh_UTmw #StockResearch #Zacks @ZacksResearch

THIS

Nvidia Reports on the AI Boom: Global Week Ahead zacks.com/stock/news/287…