"Be greedy when others are fearful" is one half of one of Warren Buffett's most well-known investing maxims. Bill Ackman, aspiring to replace him as the world's leading investment guru, thinks the time has come to act on that advice. He might not find many supporters until the White House changes its tone on the Iran conflict.
Ackman took to social media overnight to argue high-quality businesses are "trading at extremely cheap prices." And he has a point, especially in the technology sector, with Microsoft at its lowest price in a decade and Nvidia breaking a 13-year streak to trade at a discount to the S&P 500. Ackman also has form on big macroeconomic events, netting billions from Covid pandemic-related trades.
But Ackman has a vested interest in pushing that narrative. He could do with a change in market sentiment as he looks to bring his Pershing Square brand to public U.S. markets with a new fund, likely to be heavily focused on large tech companies. He also has reasons to back the Trump administration as he pitches a restructuring of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Quite apart from any judgment on whether Ackman is the new Buffett, it would take a brave investor to plunge into markets now. President Donald Trump is considering military operations to seize Iran's uranium reserves and/or its key oil-export terminal, according to weekend reports. Either would represent a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in the Middle East and likely extend the potential time frame for peace.
Plus, the market is just about to get its first data for the period of the conflict. While Friday's jobs report would normally be the highlight for its potential effect on the Federal Reserve's decision-making, it will likely be overshadowed by the impact of oil prices on inflation. Watch the Conference Board's consumer confidence index Tuesday and the manufacturing purchasing managers' index on Wednesday for additional clues as to whether the war is weighing on the economy.
Ackman might be right about the bargains on offer, but right now this isn't a market in a mood to listen.
-- Adam Clark
Barron's Live: Join Barron's Editor in Chief Ben Levisohn and Senior Managing Editor Lauren R. Rublin today at noon when they talk with Matt Gertken, chief geopolitical and U.S. political strategist at BCA Research, about the investment implications of the war in Iran, the spike in energy prices, and other geopolitical events moving markets in the U.S. and abroad. Sign up here.
Barron's Roundtable: No matter how much and how well we save, invest, and prepare, we're often thrown off course when the rules of the game abruptly change. Join us at noon on April 9 for conversations with experts about how to anticipate and cope with market gyrations and the evolving Social Security landscape -- two essential aspects of financial and retirement planning. Sign up here.
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Oil Executives See Higher Prices and a Renewables Boost
It could be months before the total cost of the unprecedented disruption to global energy supplies from the Iran war is fully understood, at least according to the energy industry executives who gathered at CERAWeek, S&P Global's annual energy conference in Houston.
-- Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and other executives from the world's biggest
oil-and-gas companies told the conference that forward oil futures are
underpricing the potential effects of the loss of supply. WTI crude hit
$100 a barrel Friday for the first time since the war began.
-- December futures were $77 a barrel, meanwhile, though prices have been
rising. There's an assumption the situation is going to get fixed quickly,
says Carlos Pascual, S&P Global senior vice president and a former energy
envoy, despite a global supply shortfall of 11 to 12 million barrels a
day.
-- Dow CEO Jim Fitterling warned it could take as long as nine months to get
ships moving, supply chains functioning, and production back on track
after a cease-fire. Executives at the conference are focused on improving
the security of their energy supply, potentially investing in their
renewable energy sources.
-- Francisco Blanch, Bank of America's head of global commodities and
derivatives, told Barron's that he expects a drive to increase renewable
energy sources after the war, including solar, wind, batteries, and
nuclear. That will make control of the supply chains for components
needed in clean energy production more critical.
What's Next: S&P Global Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin told Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures that the energy crisis is manageable if the conflict is relatively contained, just a couple more weeks. But if it goes longer, it really is a big hit to the global economy, including the U.S., he said.
-- Patti Domm and Liz Moyer
March Jobs Data Expected to Show Improvement From February
Economists -- and Federal Reserve policymakers -- will get the latest data on the health of the labor market this week, with ADP reporting private payroll numbers on Wednesday and the federal government releasing the March jobs report on Friday. Employers are expected to have added 60,000 jobs in March.
-- That would be a major improvement from the worse-than-expected loss of
92,000 jobs in the February jobs survey. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
is publishing the data despite the stock market being closed for Good
Friday and the bond market closing early at noon.
-- Fed officials have a balancing act between still-elevated inflation and
job market trends. Vice Chair Jefferson said last week there's a downside
risk to the labor market and upside risk to inflation, while Fed governor
Lisa Cook separately said the labor market reflects less hiring and a
more fragile equilibrium.
-- While unemployment for the month is expected to remain steady at 4.4%,
there are fewer jobs available. Tuesday's job openings report for the
last day of February is expected to show 6.8 million openings, which
would be down 100,000 from January job openings.
-- Private payroll growth is also expected to shrink. ADP is expected to
show that employers added 37,000 private payroll jobs in March, down from
63,000 added in February.
What's Next: Jobs growth has stalled, with the average monthly gain at 13,000 over the past year, compared to 89,333 a month over the comparable period a year earlier. Nevertheless, the unemployment rate remains below the historical average partly because the labor pool is shrinking.
-- Nicole Goodkind, Dan Lam, and Janet H. Cho
Elon Musk's SpaceX Reminds Us Disruption Is Coming
Elon Musk's SpaceX is aiming to disrupt another industry. The commercial space company is bidding against T-Mobile US, Verizon, AT&T, and others for wireless spectrum, the frequencies that wireless calls and data travel over. SpaceX aims to deliver high-speed broadband directly to phones.
-- Known for its lower-cost reusable rockets for space launches,
communications, and eventually, AI computing, SpaceX is among the
companies that the Federal Communications Commission announced the
application status of before an upcoming auction for advanced wireless
spectrum, or AWS.
-- SpaceX's Starlink broadband, built on a constellation of more than 10,000
satellites as part of its Starlink business, is muscling in on
traditional Earth-based wireless data providers to offer high-speed
direct-to-device data plans. Starlink is profitable, with 10 million
subscribers.
-- Spectrum is a finite resource every mobile company needs. Just as two
radio stations in the same city can't broadcast on the same frequency,
mobile companies need spectrum for their customers' calls and data.
SpaceX spent some $17 billion on buying spectrum from EchoStar last year.
-- Starlink helped SpaceX reach an $800 billion valuation late last year.
Now Musk has ambitions to put data centers in orbit, taking advantage of
the sun's nearly unlimited power source versus terrestrial power
production. Musk believes running data centers from orbit will be cheaper
than on the ground.
What's Next: The spectrum auction is slated to begin June 2 and last several weeks. Citi analyst Michael Rollins wrote that the broader set of bidders could make the auction more competitive, "especially given the compatibility of this spectrum with a broad diversity of devices and current wireless networks."
-- Al Root and Janet H. Cho
Fastest-Growing Housing Markets Propelled by Supply
The Census Bureau's latest population estimates illustrate how housing supply supports -- or stunts -- growth. Of the nation's 10 fastest-growing metropolitan areas in 2025, nine had more homes for sale than before the pandemic, a Barron's analysis of Realtor.com and government data suggest.
-- Central Florida's Ocala had the largest percentage population gain in the
U.S. last year, according to the Census Bureau, followed by South
Carolina's Myrtle Beach and Spartanburg. Sunbelt metros stretch across
the southern U.S., a region known for its abundance of home building.
-- Housing supply data suggest warm weather isn't the only phenomenon
spurring growth. More than two-thirds of metro areas in June 2025 had
fewer listings than they did in 2019, the final June before the pandemic
supercharged the housing market and then rising mortgage rates slammed
sales to a halt.
-- The new data show that fewer people are moving domestically, says Eric
Finnigan, the vice president of demographics research at John Burns
Research and Consulting. There's still demand for housing in more
affordable markets, he said.
-- Eight of the 10 metros with the biggest population declines for which
Realtor.com data were available had fewer listings in 2025 than in 2019,
especially in the northeast. Mortgage rates and prices are still high,
making relocating difficult. And owners could be holding out for higher
prices.
What's Next: S&P Cotality releases its Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index for January on Tuesday. Home prices rose 1.3% last year, the slowest annual rate of growth since July 2023. Chicago and New York both saw prices rise more than 5% to lead all metro markets.
-- Shaina Mishkin
-- Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer and Rupert Steiner
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 30, 2026 06:56 ET (10:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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