8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Thursday: Repricing Risk With No Clear Off‑Ramp

SpaceX Launch and Landing Control Center, Cape Canaveral, FL

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of trading Thursday. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a sharply lower open.

1. Stock futures fell and oil rose after President Trump’s prime-time address disappointed investors hoping for a quick end to the Iran war. In an address late Wednesday, Trump said he was still seeking a diplomatic agreement to end the conflict and that U.S. military aims would be completed “very shortly.” But he also vowed to hit Iran “extremely hard” in the coming weeks and pummel the country “back to the Stone Ages.” The lack of a clear timeline eroded hopes on Wall Street that the war might come to a speedy end and the Strait of Hormuz could open soon, allowing oil to once again flow freely from the Persian Gulf to world markets. (WSJ)

Not quite the soft off-ramp the market was looking for in Trump’s address last night, but rather a message of further escalation in the near-term, and that is pressuring multiple markets. “Extremely hard hits” over the next two to three weeks was the message, but there was no mention of Trump’s April 6 deadline, nor was there a clear timeline for ending hostilities or re-opening the Strait of Hormuz.

Uncertainty is back in the market while the duration of the conflict and its impact is being reset to “even longer.” U.S. strikes over the next few weeks will come at the start of Q1 2026 earnings season, and that has us thinking even more that companies are, in some cases, more likely to issue cautious guidance, while others adjust their guidance for rising input prices.

2. The dollar ​rose sharply on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump’s address on Iran shattered hopes for ‌a swift end to the conflict, sending investors towards safe-haven assets as oil prices jumped and stocks tumbled. (Reuters) Gold fell sharply from two-week highs on Thursday after U.S. ‌President Donald Trump said that Washington would continue its military campaign in Iran in the coming weeks, driving oil prices higher and dampening hopes of interest rate cuts. (Reuters)

While our Q2 2026 reconstitution of the Portfolio’s EPS Diplomats basket reduced its precious metals exposure to one holding from three gold and silver holdings in Q1 2026, the renewed uptrend in the dollar compared to Q2 2025 looks to make it a headwind for international companies as they prepare guidance for Q2 2026.

3. The UK will host talks on Thursday among 35 countries aimed at forming a coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as countries respond to Donald Trump’s threat to wind down the Iran conflict without securing the vital waterway. (FT)

We will want to see where this goes and what it could mean for reopening the Strait and the eventual unwinding of the blockade that has more than 2,000 ships on both sides of the Strait in a holding pattern. The longer the blockade persists, the greater the risk of supply chain disruptions and incremental inflation pressures.

4. The Trump administration is preparing to outline a tiered system for its broad tariffs on steel and aluminum products in an attempt to simplify a process that has dogged American companies for months. The US will maintain 50% tariffs on a large number of derivative products in which the duty will be calculated by the value of the actual imported good, according to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail the plans. Many other products will be tariffed at a lower 25% rate, while some products will fall below that duty level. (Bloomberg) The Trump administration is set to ​announce tariffs as soon as Thursday ‌on drugmakers that have not struck deals guaranteeing low prices in the U.S., Bloomberg News ​reported on Wednesday, citing people ​familiar with the plan… (Reuters)

If you’re reading this and thinking about Liberation Day, we are indeed at the one-year anniversary of Trump signing executive orders that implement broad-based tariffs on imports to the U.S. We continue to wait and see about implementation of Trump’s new 15% global tariff announced in February, but reports from RH  (RH)  and others should remind us about the impact existing tariffs are having. Incremental tariffs in 2026 raise the question as to how quickly inflation pressure created by the 2025 tariffs will recede.

5. Rocket company SpaceX ‌will host an analyst day ​on April ​21, and will offer ⁠analysts a ​visit to its “Macrohard” ​xAI datacenter in Memphis, Tennessee two days ​later, a ​source familiar with the ‌matter ⁠said on Wednesday. (Reuters)

With SpaceX filing for a confidential IPO and targeting an offering as early as this June, the event will shed light on the inner workings of the company’s various business units that run the gamut from satellites and rockets to X, xAI, and Grok to Starlink. It would be helpful to have a public S-1 filing ahead of the event so we could better understand the influence of those businesses on the company’s overall finances, as well as a historical look at margins, cash flow, and other key metrics. And yes, the event has the potential to be a major rah-rah session for the IPO offering, making it potentially an even bigger windfall for the company and the investment banks leading the deal.

6. Amazon is in talks to acquire the satellite telecommunications group Globalstar, a deal that would bolster the ecommerce giant’s effort to build its own low Earth orbit satellite business. The two sides were still negotiating over some of the complexities of a deal after lengthy talks, according to people familiar with the matter. (FT)

This is another indication that M&A activity is poised to continue, and one that would shore up Amazon’s  (AMZN)  efforts to compete with SpaceX and its Starlink orbital internet service. Earlier this week, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  announced it will introduce Amazon’s Leo on “hundreds” of aircraft beginning in 2028. The thing is, Amazon has around 180 satellites in orbit, which, to be honest, is simply dwarfed by the more than 10,000 reported active satellites operated by SpaceX.

Where this gets interesting is that Globalstar  (GSAT)  and its low-earth orbit satellites provide voice, IoT, and data services, including Apple’s  (AAPL)  satellite coverage offering. Apple also owns 20% of Globalstar. Let’s remember, too, recent reports suggest Amazon is contemplating a return to the smartphone market. Such a move, paired with Globalstar, has the potential to disrupt residential wireless and mobile service offerings. This is something Elon Musk and Starlink are already targeting with what they refer to as “cell towers in space.”

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: Initial & Continuing Jobless Claims (Weekly), Business Inventories (January), EIA Natural Gas Inventories (Weekly).

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM – Simply Good Foods  (SMPL) , Wealthfront (WLTH). PM – Progressive (PGR) .

Related: Wednesday’s Economic Data Reinforce Our Bullish Tilt on 3 Holdings

At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AMZN and AAPL.