The TACO Trade Fails

The Tape Reader Knew First

Yesterday, I posted about the TACO trade and how when the news first came out, I refused to allow it to influence my trading because I knew that it was not going to last. I knew he was going to start to TACO.

This morning, CNBC is using the exact same phrase in a headline:

The ‘TACO’ trade fails: Trump’s Iran extension fails to boost markets

— Fred Imbert, The ‘TACO’ trade fails: Trump’s Iran extension fails to boost markets (March 27, 2026)

The article is behind a paywall, so you may not be able to read it. Doesn’t matter. My point is just that I predicted that there would be such a tiny bounce on the news before the market continued sinking that I didn’t let the news float my quote.

My article was about a prior announcement that teased the idea of peace talks. The CNBC article is about Trump’s announcement yesterday about ten minutes after the markets had closed. Both had the same impact: pretty much nada.

Hopefully that word doesn’t bring ICE down on my head.

The first TACO event — the one I wrote about — cause a very, very brief uptrend that lasted literally minutes before failing. This morning, I was up watching the market off and on since pre-market opened at 1 a.m. my time.

I haven’t been doing a lot of trading, since I prefer scalping. Right now, I’m kind of “trapped” in some swing trades I made and so I’m mostly sitting tight.

I say “trapped” because I still believe the original theses behind my trades are good. But they were made before the Illegal Iran War started and, like the rest of the market, they all dropped when Trump took a dump on the world.

I made this a couple or 3 weeks ago shortly after Bondi avoided answering questions by pointing to the Dow at 50,000. A day later this. But this morning Dow Jones is near 45,500.

So I’ve been taking advantage of this situation to buy up some income ETFs that are normally quite a bit more expensive than they are right now. I’m doing it in dribbles and drabs because, no matter how low I buy, they keep going lower.

Claude and I are having fun over it.

So all morning, since pre-market started, I’ve been buying 20 shares here, 10 shares there, and no matter how low I go, it’s always going lower.

This has led Claude and I to come up with a plan to really fix things.

And I need to get crackin’ on it, because I believe the Dow had already dropped 500 points before Trump’s latest announcement. His 10-day extension changed nothing structurally. Brent (oil) is back up to $110 the last I checked. That link goes to a live chart, so the number may be different if you check it. Chinese ships were turned away from Hormuz today. Dow futures were down 400 before the open. VIX — for those who don’t know, a measurement of volatility in the market and sometimes called the “fear index” — was up at around 30.

It hangs out a lot there lately.

Even luxury stocks are taking a billion-dollar hit. The drag is on almost all stocks (except oil). And every nation is showing “red” today except that other nation that made red famous before MAGA came along — which is now apparently green!

All this happened despite Trump’s attempts to put out the dumpster fire he started in the Middle East. Iran so far has rejected Trump’s overtures.

And so, like our former allies whom Trump had already alienated to the point that they refuse to rescue him from a war they didn’t start, there’s nothing left for the tape reader to do today but sit on his hands, maybe collect some more income ETFs, and wait.

CNBC called it the TACO trade this morning. The tape called it days ago. I wrote about it yesterday.