The recipe for "stagflation" 🥶

Welcome back to the the Day Trading newsletter 📈 

Oil whipsawed $34 in a single session, the Dow erased a 900-point loss on Trump's "war is very complete" comments, and travel stocks rebound.

The stagflation trade may be alive and well.

Let's get into it 👇

💉 Hims & Hers surged 44% after Novo Nordisk agreed to sell Wegovy and Ozempic through the telehealth platform, ending a patent-infringement lawsuit filed just last month. BTIG said Novo's case was strong, meaning this deal also reduces regulatory risk from potential FDA and DOJ enforcement. The stock's biggest single-day move ever. Watch for follow-through as shorts unwind and the GLP-1 distribution landscape reshuffles (Reuters)

📈 The Dow erased a 900-point loss to close up 240 after Trump told CBS the Iran war is "very complete, pretty much," claiming Iran has "no Navy, no Air Force, no anti-aircraft equipment." The reversal came in the final two hours of trading as oil prices cratered. If you weren't watching the tape in real time, you missed one of the wildest intraday swings of the year (Investopedia)

🛢️ WTI crude hit $119/barrel overnight (the biggest weekly gain since futures began trading in 1983) then crashed to $85 by the close, a $34 swing in a single session. The whipsaw was driven by G7 reserve release talks and Trump's ceasefire comments. Expect continued volatility while the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Oil traders are pricing in headline risk, not fundamentals (CNBC)

✈️ Airlines and cruise lines whipsawed alongside oil. Delta, United, American, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian all closed higher after spending most of the session deep in the red. Fuel is the biggest non-labor expense for these names, and with WTI still elevated above pre-war levels, analysts are rewriting earnings models for H1 2026. If oil settles above $90 for more than a week, expect downgrades across the travel sector (Yahoo Finance)

💾 Memory stocks ripped, with Sandisk finishing up nearly 12% and Western Digital gaining 7%, extending an extraordinary run. Sandisk is now up 148% year-to-date. The sector continues to benefit from AI-driven demand for storage and NAND pricing power. If you're not already positioned, watch for any pullback toward the 10-day moving average as a potential entry (Investopedia)

The two most important data points from the past week are now on a collision course.

WTI crude surged above $119/barrel overnight (the biggest weekly gain since futures began trading in 1983) as the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut down.

Then Friday's jobs report showed the economy shed 92,000 jobs versus expectations of +50,000, with unemployment rising to 4.4%.

This is the textbook setup for stagflation: rising prices and a deteriorating labor market, simultaneously.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee called it "exactly the kind of stagflationary environment that's as uncomfortable as any that faces a central bank."

He's right. The Fed can't cut rates because oil-driven inflation is re-accelerating. It can't hike because the labor market is cracking.

Payrolls have declined in three of the last five months, and the economy has averaged fewer than 5,000 new jobs per month since Trump took office.

BofA warned the oil spike "could become concerning if it proves persistent," while Goldman Sachs said oil could hit $150 if Hormuz flows remain depressed through March.

The 10-year yield tells the story: it spiked to 4.21% on inflation fears before settling at 4.10% as recession bets crept back in.

For traders, think volatility.

Energy longs, defensive rotations, and short duration are a potential playbook until the Fed gets clarity (which won't come at the March 17-18 meeting).

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⚠️ Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your research before making any trades.