President Donald Trump again stepped back from the brink, and traders are cashing in on what they called “TACO Tuesday.”
After threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight” early Tuesday, just two hours before his 8 p.m. deadline, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire on the condition that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart the flow of oil. While doubts remain about the agreement and whether oil flows will actually restart, the president’s about-face still managed to lift markets.
A $1.5 trillion rally lifted all three major indexes and brought some optimism to markets following weeks of uncertainty over Middle East turmoil. Oil fell by 16% to below $100 per barrel while equities surged. The Nasdaq led gains with a 3.55% jump, followed by a 2.7% increase for the S&P 500, and a 1,200 point, or 2.6% bump, in the Dow Jones industrial average. The surge reversed weeks of losses—the S&P 500 earlier this week was down 4% since the Iran war started in late February.
Online, traders rejoiced as the reliable TACO trade, shorthand for “Trump always chickens out,” panned out once again.
“Knowing Trump will [TACO] is the equivalent of me knowing I need to drink water to survive,” wrote one commenter on the trading-focused Reddit forum SmallStreetBets.
Financial analysts tend to agree with the retail traders—with some caveats.
“This could be a boom for tech stocks now with this off-ramp in Iran,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Fortune.
Ives went further in a Wednesday note, saying more than one month of Iran turmoil has created opportunities for traders to benefit.
“We continue to strongly believe the nervous geopolitical backdrop over the past few months has created an oversold tech environment for Mag 7, software names, and many tech winners in the AI revolution,” Ives wrote.
What is the TACO trade?
The TACO trade was born last year when Trump switched course after announcing broad “Liberation Day” tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. At the time, the S&P 500 plunged nearly 20% before rebounding sharply after Trump paused them. Retail investors, in particular, capitalized on the so-called TACO trade following the Liberation Day tariffs, putting a record $3 billion into equities as the S&P 500 sank 5%.
Still, others cautioned that while the TACO trade is alive and well now, that doesn’t mean it will always deliver.
“Investors are noticing the pattern, and may they extrapolate that pattern into the future. I think that’s reasonable, but we would caution not to over extrapolate that,” Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede Investment Management, told Fortune.
Reynolds added that while the trade has been consistent for now, investors should not be confident it’s foolproof.
“We would caution that if investors were to completely see through all of those statements, they may be setting themselves up for a nasty surprise in a situation where there is a follow through,” he said.
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