War Jitters | Triple Witching | GTC Conference | Bitcoin Resilience
"This week, everything reacts to oil & derivatives expiry as the
primary market drivers. It is currently the barometer for the entire market."
—
Proflex Panel
The Iran-Israel-US conflict has entered its third week with Brent nearing $100 & a market
trending upwards, reclaiming the crucial support of $6700.
With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, oil has surged past $100, and every asset class —
equities, bonds, gold, crypto — is now being priced through the lens of energy disruption.
This is not a garden-variety geopolitical scare. This is a structural supply shock, and the market
knows it. The S&P 500 sits near four-month lows, bonds are failing their "safe
haven" test as inflation fears override flight-to-quality flows, and the Fed is walking into its
March 18 decision with almost no rate cut priced in till July.
At the same time, a massive triple-witching options expiry looms on March 20,
NVIDIA's GTC conference kicks off with Jensen Huang on stage, and Bitcoin is
quietly outperforming risk assets despite the chaos.
The signal-to-noise ratio has never been lower. Here's where the signal actually is.
Insights from the Proflex Macro Call
One of the key conversations from this week's call centers on a simple but powerful idea: oil
is the most important signal that truly matters right now.
Proflex believes in ignoring biased news headlines and instead tracking crude prices as the
real-time scoreboard for both the war's trajectory and the global economy.
Thumbrule is Simple: If oil begins to cool, it means the market is betting on a
resolution — and the NASDAQ and S&P have shown they can snap back fast once energy concerns
lift.
We went deeper into the call than just crude. A major "unknown" was flagged around
supply chain fragility beyond oil. While most investors fixate on barrels per day,
the Strait of Hormuz is also a vital chokepoint for helium — an input
the semiconductor and silicon industries cannot operate without.
A prolonged helium disruption could create multimonth pressure on the tech sector that "you cannot
defend with any technicals."
Investors were also warned about the triple-witching options expiry on March 20,
involving roughly $5 trillion in positions. Market makers have been "protecting" the market at the
6700 level, but this structural support could "unroll" after Friday's close.
If a geopolitical resolution isn't reached by then, the removal of that hedging floor
could trigger a sharper leg lower.
Watch the complete recording:
NVIDIA GTC: Can AI Cut Through the Noise?
Jensen Huang took the stage at the SAP Center in San Jose, and in a market dominated by war headlines
and oil charts, the AI trade needs its own catalyst.
NVIDIA needs a narrative refresh. The stock has been grinding lower through the year's
broader tech reset, weighed down by sector rotation into defensives. Energy,
utilities, and consumer staples have led the S&P 500 year-to-date while tech and consumer
discretionary have lagged badly.
The narrative refresh is inference: the process where trained AI models do useful
work at scale. Rumored announcements include a dedicated inference chip, the open-source NemoClaw
enterprise AI agent platform, and the next-gen Vera Rubin GPU architecture.
This week also brings Micron earnings, where analysts raised estimates significantly
on memory pricing strength. The semiconductor complex is attempting a bottom, but the helium
supply risk from the Hormuz closure adds a wrinkle that wasn't in anyone's model two
weeks ago.
Proflex View: GTC is a conviction test for AI
leadership, arriving at the exact moment the market needs something beyond oil to talk about. If
Huang delivers on inference economics and product timelines, it could put a floor under the tech
complex even as the broader market stays volatile. The secular AI theme still has a
multi-year runway.
Triple-Witching Friday: The Floor Could Drop
Trillions of dollars in stock options, index options, and index futures all expire this Friday, March
20.
Market makers have been defending current support levels with hedging activity that
keeps selling orderly. Think of it as scaffolding holding a building in place. After Friday, the
scaffolding can come down.
The Fed's decision on Wednesday (96% odds of a hold) matters less for the rate itself and more for
the updated dot plot, which tells the market how many cuts are still on the table.
The sequencing creates the trap. Fed Wednesday, then Witching Friday. If the dots
signal fewer cuts, that repricing hits right before structural hedging protection vanishes.
Proflex View: This is a test week for commentary
& volatility. The protection from options positioning unrolls after Friday. Don't chase any
rally until you see how the market trades early the following week, once the structural floor
has cleared.
Proflex Macro Watch: The Stagflation Bind
Last week, Q4 GDP was revised down to 0.7%, half the initial estimate. At the same
time, core PCE re-accelerated to 3.1%. Growth slowing while inflation rises. That's a stagflation
setup, and oil is making it worse.
February payrolls fell by 92,000. Unemployment ticked to 4.4%. The Fed faces a dual
mandate conflict: cut to support jobs or hold to fight inflation.
For now, the answer is hold.
The 10-year yield jumped 13 bps on the week to 4.28%, with the 30-year approaching 4.90%. Bonds are
failing their traditional safe-haven role because this shock is coming through energy prices, not a
demand collapse.
Proflex View: The macro is fragile but not broken.
The real risk is sequencing. If oil stays elevated through Q1 earnings season, margin
compression becomes real and stagflation goes from Wall Street debate to Main Street reality.
Bitcoin's Resilience and Gold's Speculative Reset
Bitcoin is doing something different this time. It rallied from the low $67,000s to
~$74k, up over 3% on the day alone. Unlike previous risk-off environments where BTC got crushed
alongside equities, it appears to have bottomed in the $60,000-67,000 accumulation
zone.
Long-term holder selling has collapsed, down 87% from February peaks. Strategy continues
buying thousands of BTC weekly. ETF outflows are stabilizing after
four consecutive months of redemptions.
Gold, meanwhile, is under surprising pressure. It slid from above $5,200 to the
$5,000-5,040 range by Friday. High volatility is driving up margin costs and option
premiums, flushing out leveraged players.
Proflex View: Bitcoin's bottoming looks genuine, with
strong-hand accumulation replacing weak-hand liquidation. Gold's pullback is speculative
currently due to excessive volatility but as per our thesis, the structural bull-cycle remains
intact.
Proflex Playbook — Discipline Over Direction
The market is caught between a geopolitical crisis it can't model and a structural expiry event it
can time to the hour. This is a week for tactical discipline.
- Focus on Structural Growth: Continue to overweight the secular AI theme,
recognizing its multi-year runway.
- Anticipate Shallow Corrections: Use dips as accumulation opportunities, not
reasons for fear.
- Diversify Thoughtfully: Recognize the "decorrelation" across asset classes;
consider gold, silver and Bitcoin for portfolio resilience.
- Develop Mental Models: Prioritize long-term planning (6-12 months out) over
short-term news.
If you're an All-Access or Managed Portfolio subscriber, our positioning has already
shifted ahead of this moment — scaling up asymmetric hard asset plays while hedging for earnings
volatility and geopolitical tail risks.
Until next
week,
— The Proflex Team
Trusted Macro Insights. Calm Investing. Tactical
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