I just saw something that keeps surprising me: while oil prices soar above $100 and Trump announces the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the S&P 500 rises as if nothing is happening. On Monday, April 13th, it went up 69 points, reaching 6,886. Nasdaq increased by 1.2%, Dow Jones by 0.6%. How is it possible for stocks to go up when geopolitical news is so negative?

The answer lies in what Wall Street discovered that same day: corporate earnings remain solid. JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock released bullish reports almost simultaneously, all with the same logic: geopolitical shocks are temporary, but companies’ profits are real. BlackRock even upgraded its rating on U.S. stocks from neutral to overweight, indicating that signs of recovery are already visible in navigating the Strait.

What’s interesting is that the data supports this. As of April 10th, the earnings growth expectations for the S&P 500 for the first quarter were 13.9%, up from 12.7% before the conflict. That is, after nearly seven weeks, analysts did not lower their projections; they raised them. That’s what truly moves the market.

And then there’s the issue of the "Seven Giants." The valuation premium of NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Tesla compressed significantly, dropping from 1.7 times the S&P 500 level to 1.2 times. That’s exactly what the bulls needed to justify that it’s time to buy.

But the most revealing thing is what happened on Reddit. In r/stocks, a post titled "Do you believe it now? The market isn’t moved by the news" exploded with nearly a thousand likes. Retail users were genuinely confused. On wallstreetbets, other traders pointed out that the physical oil market was screaming supply panic, but stocks remained calm. The contradiction between the two markets left everyone scratching their heads.

The typical stance I saw in the comments was: the market rises because most believe that in 5 years, this won’t matter, and honestly, that’s not irrational. UBS’s historical data confirms it: when the S&P 500 drops between 5% and 10% over 3-4 weeks, it usually returns to pre-conflict levels within six months. The average recovery cycle is about 42 days.

What’s happening is that the market already adjusted its valuation in March. Now it’s in “bad news already priced in” mode. Institutions are betting on the resilience of profits and limited conflicts. Retail investors on Reddit and wallstreetbets simply don’t understand why geopolitical alarms aren’t translating into sustained declines. But the answer is clear: the market saw this coming.