The 2026 Trade Crossfire
Exclusive by: Tony Greer
Today’s article is brought to you by Texas Precious Metals
If you are struggling to stay ahead of the global markets in 2026, you are not alone. Historically, a calendar year presents two or three dominant macro themes. These trends typically complement one another, follow a discernible economic logic, and persist for years.
The year 2026 has completely broken that playbook. Instead, we have witnessed a crossfire of highly volatile, seemingly disconnected asset movements that have made navigating a trading book exceptionally frustrating. Just seven months into the year, capital has been forced to navigate no fewer than five distinct market regimes.
As a tactical trader who authors The Sailors Edge newsletter and manages my own capital using decades of Wall Street sales and trading experience, my objective is simple: identify winning sectors by pairing pure technical analysis with macroeconomic realities and navigate into them for the bull market run.
To quote financial writer Jared Dillian, “I have vast utility for large pools of capital.” The markets are fertile ground. However, the rapidly shifting paradigms of 2026 have tested even the most disciplined frameworks.
To understand where we are heading, we must look at how we got here—beginning with a staggering reversal from the close of last year. We entered 2026 on the heels of a massive bull run in hard assets, where gold miners (GDX), industrial metals (XME), and uranium miners (URA) led the S&P 500 with gains of 152%, 82%, and 60% respectively. Many expected that momentum to carry us straight to the promised land in 2026. Instead, the market took a sharp turn into a crossfire.
REGIME I) We began the year in our first regime. We were doing THE DEBASEMENT TRADE regime, a term coined in the fall by a Morgan Stanley analyst to describe the obvious death of fiat currency, caused by destructive fiscal and monetary policy and completely unsustainable deficits. There was a private credit risk storm brewing in the background to support metals further, but, as traders do, we eventually forgot about it. Better opportunities presented themselves. If you were sitting there flat, you could probably catch them, but how often are we sitting around with no risk on?
Gold and silver were the obvious outlet to start the year. They were responding to dollar weakness, money printing, deficit expansion, and outlandish loss of institutional credibility. We were finally getting a glimpse of the redacted Epstein files. The world was begging for closure on this bizarre saga. It was politically euphoric, and metals had just come off a year in 2025 where silver rallied 150% and gold 65% to express that displeasure with the current leadership class.
Now investors were getting paid to fight the purchasing-power implosion of their dollars with metals & mining investments. We should have known this was prone to become a bubble, but the gold response was something new. We were all mesmerized at the time and in it (BIG) to win it.
In January, silver went berserk. Much to my displeasure, the silver bugs were out in force cheerleading on the way up to $121.65/oz. “EIGHTY FOUR!!!! WE WANT MORE!!” “EIGHTY FIVE!! SILVER IS ALIVE!!” “EIGHTY NINE – THIS SILVER IS MINE!!!“ I was shaking my fist at them.
“You guys are going to get it. It’s going to trade every price you are cheering on the way down,” I warned them on Twitter, because there’s no cheerleading in trading. And they did. They got what they had coming.
In the background, with WTI crude oil trading either side of $60 after a six-month losing streak, oil services conspicuously rallied 22% in January. For what reason, nobody knew. You had to be a magician to catch it.
Silver peaked on January 29 at $121 and then traded a low of $64.10 on February 6, so the first big move of the year got a smackdown of concussive proportions. The best part is that silver bulls sounded the same at the top as every other bubble bull. “You don’t understand what’s about to happen.” And in the moment, because of price action, that’s hard to fade, but the signals never change.
Needless to say, metals and miners had picked up where they left off last year and performed well early in the year. I was long all of it on the Navigator, and we were set up for another mammoth performance. I believe that I said at Mike Campbell’s World Financial Conference in early February that I thought gold miners could be up 150% again this year. As I type, they are down over 15% year to date. Thank God I’m a disciplined trader. Somehow, I got out and lived to tell about it.
In February, the dollar index lifted off its yearly low at 95.50, rallying 0.65%. Then it added another 2.5% in March as the U.S. dollar became a safe-haven trade amid the US-Iran conflict. That’s when I knew it was time for traders to hold on to their hats.
REGIME II) – We were only two months into the year when the GEOPOLITICAL SHOCK REGIME began. President Trump, who campaigned in 2024 on NO NEW WARS, decided to attack Iran to stop them from developing a nuclear weapon, which is a war excuse we’ve all heard before. We gave the “weapons of mass destruction” narrative a new boogie man and started bombing critical facilities across Iran.
With that new headline, attention to the Epstein Files completely ceased, and the world began discussing the near-certain cataclysmic events that would ensue if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed. The fever pitch reached a crescendo on X at the end of March. $200 oil was a near-mathematical certainty, even though the March high of $119 turned out to be the high of the move.
The big problem was that higher oil prices ignited the inflation narrative and became a knife in the back of risk. TLT, the iShares 20+ year treasury ETF, fell 5% in March, signaling that the bond selloff of 2026 was officially underway.
Gold miners and other industrial and manufacturing companies suddenly had to price in much higher diesel fuel costs. Miners and transports of every denomination were promptly repriced lower. It became obvious that after their performance in 2025, they were the tip of the risk spear. As oil rallied 50% in March to prices over $100/barrel, gold miners fell 20%, and industrial miners fell 10%, and most everyone bailed out. We had an oil trade to chase.
Just as we began chasing the trade, West Texas Intermediate Crude oil peaked at $120 on March 9 as bombing intensified. In the background, CRACK spreads put in their initial spike, trading from $25 to $60, and refiners started climbing. That was the signal that we needed an energy hedge in our portfolio.
At the end of Q1, on March 31, oil services (OIH) were at the top of the year-to-date leaderboard, up 44%. E&P (XLE) was right behind them with a 37% YTD gain. Natural resources (IGE) were up 25%, with the Bloomberg Commodity Index providing the tailwinds of a 23% rally. Rare earths (REMX) were creeping into the leadership picture, up 19%. Uranium miners (URNM) were behind them, up 15%. Gold and industrial miners (GDX, XME) were nowhere near the front of the pack. We were hunting higher oil.
It seemed clear with the war on that we were about to have another RESOURCES UP, TECH DOWN market with hints of inflation. At least that’s what the tape was whispering in my ear at the time. The tease that it is.
REGIME III) We turned the calendar page into April and stepped right into the third regime of the year, the Semiconductor Spike Regime. It led the S&P to a 10% recovery rally in April while WTI crude oil bobbled between $90 and $120.
In April, SMH shot itself out of a flat-lined cannon and rallied 32%. The positive headline flywheel was in motion against the backdrop of war, which didn’t slow it down a basis point.
Ready for this? In January, Nvidia invested another $2B in CoreWeave, expanding a prior stake. CoreWeave would buy CPUs from Nvidia in return. In February, AMD and Meta struck a $100B deal. Meta would buy AMD AI chips, and get warrants in a stake in AMD. Nvidia also threw another $30B into their now $110B OpenAI funding. In April, Amazon committed another $5B to Anthropic, and in return, Anthropic agreed to spend $100B on Amazon Web Services over 10 years.
Round and round the circular financing would go. SMH rallied almost from $400 in April to the peak of $775 right before the SpaceX IPO/ While we were waiting for oil to rally further (because, you know, the Strait was closed) and for rates to rise in an inflationary reaction function, semis kept going! Right in the face of rising yields, SMH rallied another 18% in May and another 10% in June before peaking around the time of the SPCX IPO in June.
That semi-rally provided one of the most staggering pre-market IPO revaluations anyone had ever seen. If you caught that out-of-the-blue vertical move, add “SUPER TRADER” to your resume, and I’ll swear to it.
In the background, US10Y yields were trending from 4.25% to the year’s highs at 4.7%. I had never seen tech stick its chest out in the face of rising yields like this, but I’ve never seen an AI bubble this size or a Space IPO before either. They could not have created a more friendly IPO environment for Elon, that lucky bastard.
Semiconductors (SMH), oil services (OIH), refiners, financials (XLF), and industrials (XLI) performed well in REGIME III. Software (IGV) and social media (SOCL) were off 20% year to date due to the SAASpocalypse and the threat of vicious, chaseable bear markets. Cloud storage (SKYY) and internet stocks (FDN) were down over 13%. Mag7 was off 12% at the end of Q1. What were semiconductors thinking about separating from the tech pack like this, and how were we supposed to trade it?
That’s when my ideas to short semis and SpaceX were birthed. The market can’t have it both ways, landing a trillion-dollar IPO on the tape and blowing a semi-bubble even bigger. I saw a good chance both could peak and retreat. Patience would be required, but I got the timing right.
REGIME IV) The fourth regime of 2026 was the infamous “CEASEFIRE REGIME” in May and June. During that regime, President Trump would tweet on Truth Social about a ceasefire, oil would back off $15, the S&P would rally 5%, and markets would try to recover. Then there would be more unforeseen bombing, oil would go up $5, and the S&P would fall 1%, and President Trump would have to talk them off a ledge again. WTI finally collapsed from $90 to $70 in June. It seemed obvious that the strategy was to let markets recover so SpaceX could land on the tape.
Also in June, while oil backed off, the 3-2-1 crack spread traded from a low of $43 to a high of $70 in July. If you didn’t have refiners on the pad, you couldn’t make money over the summer.
By the end of June and Q2, Semiconductors (SMH) were winning the year-to-date sector race, up 65%. Cybersecurity (HACK) had broken out to a new all-time high and snuck into second place, up 30% year-to-date. Oil services (OIH) and North American oil & gas (XOP) were up over 20%, which at least made sense given elevated oil prices. But how could you safely position from here, in this environment? You can’t.
REGIME V) We’re currently barreling toward the end of July in our fifth regime, which I’m calling THE SHELL GAME regime. During this regime, President Trump will go back and forth between bombing Iran and putting the military “on pause” so markets can get back on their feet.
We’re still battling a powerful inflation narrative with rates near the top of the yearly range. The dollar index won’t back much off the highs. Gold is holding $4K. Crack spreads and refiners are still bid-only. Semiconductors and SpaceX are decidedly offered and may mark an interim top in the stock market by the time it’s all over. Semiconductors are still the leading sector, but they face technical exhaustion. The S&P sits up 6% year-to-date. The Nasdaq is up 7%.
So here in the middle of the SHELL GAME regime, we’ve got diesel and jet fuel up nearly 100% year-to-date. Semiconductors are still in the sector lead, but they’re only up 50% year-to-date. WTI crude oil still sits up 43% year-to-date. North American Oil Gas, Oil Services, and E&P (XOP, OIH, XLE) are up between 28% and 36%. Cybersecurity (HACK) has maintained its breakout pace, rallying 32% year to date.
Given everything that’s going on – how would you bet on the end of the year?
Would you bet that semiconductors take off and rally to a new high, or curl over into moving-average support under the weight of the SpaceX IPO?
Would you bet that we stay at war with Iran and keep oil prices elevated, making it safe to stay in the oil sectors for the rest of the year?
Would you bet that this cybersecurity sector keeps breakout momentum and overtakes SMH for the sector lead before the year is over?
Are software and social media buys down here, off double-digit percentages year-to-date?
Will gold, uranium, and industrial miners erase the divot they’re in this year, or were they a one-year performance wonder?
All of these questions, and more, are still plaguing a trader with 35 years of experience under his belt. If you have any suggestions as to how 2026 finally pans out, I’m all ears. I’m keeping it simple: betting semiconductors and SpaceX lower, and gold and oil higher.
Wish me luck.
