Trump’s Iran strikes fit a surprising 2026 pattern: Here’s what the stock-market data shows.
An earlier version of this article misspelled Ryan Detrick’s last name. It has been corrected.
It’s been called the “Axios put.”
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Stocks closed up sharply Monday, following a slump headed into the weekend, after President Donald Trump reassured Wall Street that the U.S. and Iran were ready for fresh peace talks following weekend retaliatory airstrikes over the Strait of Hormuz.
It’s also simply been called the White House’s preferred playbook in the first half of 2026: helping markets rally after a weekend of U.S. military action — or the threat of force — in another country.
It started in early January with the swift capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro on a Saturday, and pivoted eight weeks later to another Saturday U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran.
“This past weekend is a perfect example of the latest types of flare-ups,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at the Carson Group. “As soon as Friday evening rolled around, the fighting picked up, but by Sunday night and futures opening, things had calmed down.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA marked a new record on Monday, closing above 52,000 for the first time. The S&P 500 index SPX gained 1.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP finished 2.1% higher, both snapping five-session skids, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
In late April, Trump praised the resilience of the S&P 500 and the Dow during an interview with CNBC, saying he expected oil to surge to $200 a barrel and the stock market to plunge 20% after his administration “did a little thing” and attacked Iran.
Instead, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both poised to log their best first-half of a year since 2024, up 8.7% and 11.1%, respectively, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Several of the big market moves of 2026 followed Axios news reports about U.S. escalation or de-escalation plans for the Iran war, which is where the “Axios put” term comes from.
U.S. regulators and several elected officials have been monitoring suspicious activity in global oil futures that began since the start of the conflict with Iran.
When asked for comment, a White House spokesperson said “the real trend” was stock indexes rising due to Trump’s policies.
Related: Traders point to suspicious activity in the oil market on Wednesday
More broadly, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq performed notably better on average on Mondays in the second quarter of this year, versus the average Mondays of the past decade, as the below Dow Jones Market Data chart shows.
