Oil Drops 10%, Stocks Hit Records, and the War Trade Reverses in One Day

Six weeks of war, record oil prices, and a market grinding through geopolitical uncertainty all converged into one Friday session when Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz completely open.

Today's edition has every name worth knowing from the session that officially ended the war trade.

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Iran's foreign minister declared the Strait of Hormuz "completely open" for commercial traffic on Friday morning. The market responded with its best session in weeks: the S&P 500 crossed 7,100 for the first time in history, the Dow surged 900 points, and the Russell 2000 hit a new all-time high as investors rotated out of war-premium trades and into everything the conflict had been holding down. 

Oil dropped 10%, putting WTI on pace for its worst week since April 2020, and the energy sector reversed hard: refining stocks like PBF, Par Pacific, and Delek fell double digits while travel names surged, with Royal Caribbean up 9.7%, United Airlines up 9%, and Boeing gaining 3%.

Eli Lilly's (NYSE: LLY) new weight loss pill Foundayo drew 1,390 prescriptions in its first week of U.S. sales. That number came from roughly two days of actual data capture and limited pharmacy availability.

Broad distribution through retail pharmacies and telehealth only started on April 9.

The real numbers have not even begun to show up yet. Lilly just proved that people want a pill, not just another injection.

The Needle Was Always the Barrier

Zepbound and Mounjaro changed the obesity treatment market. But weekly injections are intimidating for millions of people who otherwise want help losing weight.

A daily pill removes that barrier completely. No needles. No refrigeration. No clinic visits.

Ask yourself how many people skipped weight loss drugs entirely because they did not want to inject themselves every week.

That is the population Lilly just unlocked with a single product launch.

Pills Change the Business Model

Injectable drugs require cold storage, specialty shipping, and careful handling. Pills sit on a pharmacy shelf.

That difference transforms distribution economics and makes the product accessible through channels Lilly has never fully tapped before.

You went from needing a specialty pharmacy to picking up weight loss medication the same way you grab any other prescription.

Lilly just made its biggest product category dramatically easier to deliver, and that simplicity is worth more than any single week of prescription numbers.

Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) 's Indian e-commerce platform, Flipkart, is preparing to launch movie and concert ticketing and to pilot food delivery as early as May.

These categories have nothing to do with selling products online. They are part of Walmart's broader ambition in the world's most populous country.

Walmart paid $16 billion for Flipkart in 2018. It is now turning that investment into a platform that touches entertainment, dining, fashion, and daily commerce.

India Is Walmart's Long Game

Walmart operates over 4,600 stores in the U.S., but cannot open traditional retail in India due to regulations. Flipkart is how Walmart reaches 1.4 billion consumers.

Every new category Flipkart enters expands Walmart's footprint in a market it cannot access any other way.

You think about why Walmart keeps investing in a business halfway around the world, and the answer is scale. India's consumer economy is growing faster than almost anywhere else on earth.

Walmart's Global Identity Is Evolving

In the U.S., Walmart sells groceries and competes with Amazon. In India, it is building a lifestyle super-platform through Flipkart. These are two completely different strategies under the same company.

You zoom out, and Walmart stops looking like a single-format retailer.

It is becoming a company that adapts its model to whatever each market demands, and India is where that flexibility is being tested most aggressively.

Oil has moved above $100 a barrel as tensions in the Middle East continue to reshape expectations across global energy markets.

While daily headlines can drive sharp swings, the bigger story may be what higher crude prices mean for select energy companies with strong cash flow and operating leverage.

Zacks has outlined three oil stocks that may be well positioned if elevated prices persist.

Read the Report.

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Nike Inc (NYSE: NKE) relaunched its ACG outdoor label at the 2026 Winter Olympics in February. Now it is following up with its first hiking shoe since that comeback.

The Zegama Hike drops in July and blends Nike's running technology with trail-specific design built from scratch.

This is not a marketing stunt. It is a product pipeline. Nike is making a deliberate move to compete in a category it abandoned years ago, while smaller brands ran away with it.

ACG Is the Vehicle

Nike is not launching a new brand. It is reviving one with decades of credibility. ACG has cult status among outdoor enthusiasts who remember its original run. Relaunching it at the Olympics gave global visibility.

Following up with real performance products gives it substance. That sequence matters. Hype first, product second.

Your attention gets captured at the Olympics and then sustained by what actually shows up on shelves.

This Is About More Than Shoes

Nike has been losing cultural relevance to newer, more focused competitors. The outdoor category represents a growth lane as traditional sneaker culture plateaus.

Staking a claim here gives Nike access to a consumer base it has been missing.

You connect the ACG relaunch, the neuroscience shoes from earlier this year, and the hiking push, and a pattern emerges. Nike is not tweaking its playbook.

It is rewriting entire chapters to stay ahead of a market that stopped waiting for it.

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Energy Focus [EFOI] $6.95 (+232.40%) 

Energy Focus provides UPS systems and precision cooling for data centers and announced the completion of Project G, a $500,000 UPS deployment for a Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer, alongside Project Y, a multi-year contract valued at $6.6 million with one of Asia's largest data center developers spanning 2026-2027.

For a company with a $13 million market cap and 12 employees, a $6.6 million contract is a fundamental repricing event, not a momentum trade, and insider buying of $600,000 in recent months confirms management sees the same thing.

Critical Metals [CRML] $12.56 (+35.54%) 

The Government of Greenland approved the transfer of a 50.5% stake in Tanbreez Mining to Critical Metals, bringing the company's total ownership of the rare earths project to 92.5%. Texas Capital initiated coverage with a Strong Buy rating and a $20 price target on the same day, and the company holds a $120 million letter of intent from the Export-Import Bank for development financing.

The Tanbreez project in southern Greenland contains eight heavy rare earth elements and is positioned directly in the supply chain diversification narrative driving rare earth investment.

Candel Therapeutics [CADL] $6.36 (+23.35%)

Candel Therapeutics is developing cancer immunotherapy using engineered herpes simplex viruses designed to selectively kill tumor cells while activating an immune response.

The $459 million Strong Buy-rated company is advancing multiple Phase 2 trials and caught the week's sustained biotech sector rally, which has been pulling capital into clinical-stage oncology names following the string of FDA approvals this week. Volume at 3.31x average confirms institutional participation alongside the sector tailwind.

Badger Meter [BMI] $115.70 (-24.03%) 

Badger Meter reported Q1 2026 EPS of $0.93 versus a $1.24 consensus estimate, a 25% miss, and revenue of $202.3 million versus $232.7 million expected, a 13% miss, as sales declined 9% year-over-year following the completion of major multi-year AMI metering projects.

Operating margin compressed to 17.4% from 22.2% a year ago, and short-cycle order rates came in $15-20 million below internal expectations. Management guided for full-year revenue to be roughly flat to 2025 excluding acquisitions, removing the growth premium the stock had been pricing in.

PBF Energy [PBF] $37.12 (-12.93%) 

PBF Energy is one of the largest independent petroleum refiners in the U.S. and had been up over 70% year-to-date on the war trade, which drove crack spreads from roughly $20 to over $58 as Persian Gulf refined product supply was cut off.

The Strait reopening collapses that thesis: if oil flows normalize, crack spreads compress, and PBF's refining economics return to pre-war levels. The stock is repricing that in immediately, with oil down 10% directly eroding the margin advantage that had defined the bull case.

Delek US [DK] $37.21 (-12.34%) 

Delek is an independent petroleum refiner and pipeline operator that ran hard in 2026 on elevated crack spreads driven by the Strait closure. The same Strait reopening trade that is hitting PBF and Par Pacific is running through Delek in an identical fashion: lower crude prices compress refining margins, and the stock reprices the new economic reality immediately.

Delek's integrated logistics assets provide some cushion relative to pure refiners, but not enough to offset a 10% single-session crude oil decline.

The conflict in Iran isn’t slowing down—it’s intensifying.

Ongoing strikes and pressure on global oil routes are already pushing gas prices higher, with analysts warning of broader economic impact if disruptions continue.

That kind of instability can affect portfolios tied to traditional assets. It’s why many investors look to physical gold as a way to help protect their savings during uncertain times.

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Thanks for reading. I'll see you at the next open! 

Best Regards,
— Adam G.
Elite Trade Club

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