Ryan Stancil,
Editor
May 8, 2026
Is everything awesome?
If you ask Wall Street investors and traders, the answer is yes. If you ask the average person, the answer is more likely to be no.
Normally, this is the kind of situation where you would say one person is right and the other wrong. But in this case, it could very well be the kind of situation where two things are true.
On the one hand, everything is awesome for people who own assets. Markets are up, commodities are up, and money is being thrown at AI-related investments left and right.
On the other hand, the average price of a gallon of gas is just over $4.50 and households all over the country are feeling the squeeze. That’s the kind of indicator that informs other spending, especially on things like food and recreation.
That’s evident in talk from CEOs of companies like McDonald’s and Walmart, who have spoken on record about what they’ve been noticing in the spending habits of their target audiences.
Increasingly, consumers are doing everything in their power to keep up with the rising cost of living. This comes at a time of increasingly disruptive supply constraints and other inflationary pressures driven by the ongoing war in Iran.
Both of these things are happening at the same time, but you hear much more about the former. Just today, news about the labor market is doing the rounds on the front pages of all the economic outlets that matter, and that’s pushing stock prices even higher and giving traders a reason to celebrate going into the weekend. Even if the drive to the bar and the celebratory drinks cost more.
Pair this with the fact that, over in the Middle East, the narrative has been that a peace deal is in the works. Nevermind that Iran-flagged ships that defy Trump’s blockade are being fired on.
The news of the ceasefire and pending peace deal helped the recent upswing in markets, but this is something we’ve seen time and again since this began. Supposed good news comes out of the region, stocks go up. Violence and tension flare up and things pull back to prior levels, if not below. The reality is the state of the war fluctuates based on the whims of two stubborn sides refusing to give ground to each other. This often leads to any news of progress being treated with skepticism at the very least.
The markets have largely seemed to sidestep this as of late, as traders have gotten used to the unpredictable nature of the way the conflict has been playing out. Instead, market watchers and participants have been getting their fixes from positive news like the recent jobs numbers and the story about increased AI spending from the tech giants.
Talk of the pending peace agreement has helped, certainly, but we’ve seen how shaky that ground is, so it’s not something that can be necessarily relied on.
And all of that, both the good news and the bad, seems to have been to the benefit of gold.
Like everything else, it was hit hard when the conflict began. But as of late, traders were reminded of its safe haven status and have been slowly finding their way back to it.
Over the past two weeks or so, it has held a tight range around $4700 per ounce. It would sometimes drop down to around $4500 only to recover quickly.
The gold bull market is something we’ve been talking about frequently and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that gold is proving to be a safe long-term bet poised for growth.
In a world where uncertainty hangs over the market and the gulf between the market and the economy widens, gold is showing why it has been reliable for so long.
If you want to know more about one of the best ways to invest in gold for the biggest profit potential, click here to learn more.
Keep your eyes open,
Ryan Stancil
Editor, Bizarro World