March is over… and what a month it was 😬. The war in Iran dominated the month. Oil prices jumped, and that brought a lot of fear into the markets ⚔️📉
In this recap, we break down what happened. How did the indexes perform? What did our portfolios do? Which stocks held up during the fear, and which ones didn’t? We end with the moves we made this month.
Dive into our full March Recap below 👇
📢 Our Best Buys for April drop this weekend — don’t miss it 🎯
What Moved the Markets in March?
March was a brutal month for markets. The war in Iran dominated the whole month. Iran responded with missiles and drones across the region, targeting U.S. bases and countries like Qatar and the UAE.
Iran also made it clear ships were no longer safe in the Strait of Hormuz. Tankers were attacked, traffic dropped sharply, and in practice the route was almost shut down. Around 20% of the world’s oil normally goes through that route, so this had a big impact. Supply dropped, and Brent oil prices shot up to well above $100.
That brought a lot of fear back into the markets. High-growth stocks were hit the hardest, but big tech names like Meta and Microsoft also dropped sharply. Almost all companies, except oil companies, came under pressure.
The VIX moved above 30, and the Fear & Greed Index dropped to 13, clear signs that extreme fear had taken over.
Source: CNN Fear & Greed Index
But yesterday, on the last day of the month, sentiment shifted. Iran signaled it wants to end the war, as long as it gets guarantees the conflict won’t return. At the same time, reports suggested Trump is open to ending the war as well, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. Markets reacted immediately, with indexes up more than 2–3%.
The big question now: is the war really nearing its end, and on what terms?
If a deal is reached soon, markets could recover further. But if the war continues, markets could fall again, and possibly even further than before.
Besides geopolitics, there was also a lot of company news. Nvidia announced major investments in U.S. photonics companies Lumentum and Coherent. During GTC, Jensen Huang said demand for Blackwell and Rubin could reach $1 trillion through 2027. He also introduced Feynman as the next step after Rubin, and expanded partnerships with Uber, Adobe and BYD.
Uber moved further into autonomous driving, announcing partnerships with Zoox, Rivian, Wayve, Nissan and Nvidia to bring robotaxes onto the platform, and acquiring Blacklane to expand into premium rides.
The leak of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model showed how fast AI is moving, and investors started selling cybersecurity stocks.
Meta announced layoffs of around 20% of its workforce, shifting focus toward AI and moving away from the metaverse, shutting down parts of Horizon Worlds.
MercadoLibre plans to invest $3.4 billion in Argentina and $11 billion in Brazil across logistics, its marketplace and fintech platform MercadoPago.
Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers resumed their partnership, with Wegovy available again on the platform as both a pill and pen.
Elon Musk introduced “Terafab,” a new initiative where Tesla and SpaceX plan to build massive AI compute in-house, instead of relying on external infrastructure.
So how did the markets respond to all of this? Let’s take a look at how the three major indexes performed in March:
S&P 500: -5.1% 📉 (-4.6% YTD)
Nasdaq: -4.8% 📉 (-6.0% YTD)
Dow Jones: -5.4% 📉 (-3.6% YTD)
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Portfolio Performance: How Did We Do?
How did our portfolios perform in March?
In this update, we break it all down: how we performed vs the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones, which stocks held up best, and which ones underperformed.
The falling stock prices gave us the chance to buy more of the companies we believe in at better prices.
Want to see what we bought and sold? Check out the full breakdown below 👇
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