Market Watch From the Tower: March 18th, 2026

By: Nick Hathaway | Publish Date: March 19th, 2026

“I filled it up once, and I’ll fill it up again, but right now, we’ll reduce it a little and that brings the prices down,” President Donald Trump said in response to rising oil prices nationwide speaking on an interview conducted in Cincinnati,  

This week, the markets follow the trend from last week’s reporting as Yahoo Finance reports that “US stocks fell on Wednesday after the latest reading on prices pointed to accelerating inflation as investors waited for the Federal Reserve’s latest policy decision.” As reported by AAA, gas prices have also increased by 0.264 percentage points, which is 26.4 cents per gallon on the national average. 

Since the last Market Watch From the Tower report, the Nasdaq has also fallen –1.06% over the course of the past five days, in comparison to last week’s report of it barely holding steady over 0.04%. The United States and Israel’s bombings of Iran, resulting in a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, is largely contributing to oil price concerns.  

As reported by Investors Business Daily, the Trump Administration issued a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act, which mandated that the transport of US goods must be undertaken by US ships between US ports in response to the market shifts. This waiver will allow anyone to commercially ship foreign goods into the United States as well as allowing the movement of foreign goods within the United States. 

Despite NVIDIA’s increase in their stock value after CEO Jensen Huang announced a chip deal with China, the markets did not see much improvement. The reported deal is forecasted to bring sales to surpass one trillion dollars in China by 2027. The deal includes an Nvidia Groq 3 chip and an AI Chip that will be utilized for space, alongside the newly inducted Nvidia Nemoclaw. 

The Federal Reserve is expected to continue watching interest rates as the US-Iran War continues to rage on. The US-Iran War is a primary deciding factor of interest rates, as reported by Colby Smith from the New York Times when interviewing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. 

The recent Consumer Price Index (Used to measure market prices of food, transportation, energy, and housing) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics increased by 2.4% over the last 12 months. This reaches the initial prediction previously made by economic forecasts.  

Check back every Thursday for Nick Hathaway’s Market Watch from The Tower.