Close your eyes, picture a quarter where U.S. stocks notch their worst performance in four years, global markets erase twelve trillion dollars in market cap, gas prices hit $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022, and Microsoft closes its worst three-month stretch since the 2008 financial crisis. Now open them. That's what just happened. Q1 2026 is in the books.

And yet — in a twist that feels almost cinematic — the quarter ended today with the best single trading day in nearly ten months. The Dow jumped over 500 points, the Nasdaq surged, and the S&P 500 finally caught a breath after five weeks of grinding lower. The catalyst: a Wall Street Journal report suggesting President Trump may be willing to withdraw U.S. military forces from Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz — the oil chokepoint that started all of this — remains technically closed. Iran's own president signaled an openness to negotiations. WTI crude sold off from a morning high of $106.86 all the way down to $101.79 by the close.

One day doesn't undo a quarter. But that single session told you something real about the coiled energy sitting underneath all the fear.

March by the Numbers

Let's just call it what it was. The S&P 500 is down roughly 5% for the year — all of that coming after the conflict in Iran broke out in late February. The index has fallen more than 7.7% since the strikes began, which according to MarketWatch actually makes this selloff perform worse than the median 6.1% decline during comparable past geopolitical shocks. U.S. gas prices crossed $4 a gallon, up more than 30% in barely a month. Job openings fell to 6.9 million in February from 7.2 million in January — hiring slowed to its lowest pace since April 2020. The JOLTS data isn't a recession signal on its own, but it's a reminder the labor market was already softening before oil hit triple digits.

The European picture is starker: the Stoxx 600 just closed its worst month since March 2020 — the literal pandemic crash. Eurozone inflation came in at 2.5% in March, blowing past the ECB's target. The dollar, meanwhile, quietly tracked its best quarter since 2024, playing the safe-haven role while everything else slid.

You can see all the sector and ETF damage mapped out on the Advanced Filter page — sorting by 1-month or YTD returns paints the picture clearly. Energy is the only sector up. Everything else is a shade of red.

Nvidia at a Forward P/E of 20: Is That Actually Cheap?

Here's the number I keep coming back to. Nvidia closed today at $174.40 — up 5.59% on the day — and its forward P/E is sitting around 20x. To understand why that's surprising, a quick detour: forward P/E is what you're paying today for every dollar of earnings analysts expect the company to generate over the next twelve months. A lower number means you're paying less per unit of future profit.

For most of 2024 and early 2025, Nvidia was trading at a forward P/E north of 35x, sometimes touching 45x during AI mania peaks. The market was basically saying: "This growth is so reliable, so extraordinary, we'll pay a massive premium for it." Now that same company — which just closed a fiscal year with $215.9 billion in revenue (+65% year-over-year), a 71% gross margin, and $120 billion in net income — is priced at 20x forward earnings. That's cheaper than the S&P 500's long-run average, and we're talking about one of the most profitable businesses ever built.

Now — to be clear — cheap isn't the same as "buy immediately." If those earnings estimates get revised down (war disrupts data center buildouts, energy costs spike AI infrastructure expenses), the math changes. Reuters noted just today that Big Tech's $635 billion AI capex commitment is facing an "energy shock test." That's real. But 20x forward on Nvidia — versus 35–45x a year ago — is a very different conversation about risk-reward. Want to compare how Nvidia stacks up against the broader tech index on key ratios? The NVDA vs. QQQ comparison breaks it down side by side.

When Fear Gets Extreme, History Has Something to Say

The CNN Fear & Greed Index — which aggregates seven different market sentiment signals including momentum, volatility, put/call ratios and safe haven demand — is currently sitting at about 9 out of 100. That puts it deep in "Extreme Fear" territory. The put/call ratio, which measures how many investors are buying downside protection (puts) versus upside bets (calls), is at roughly the 92nd percentile historically. Translation: more than 9 out of 10 past readings have shown less fear than what's being expressed in the options market right now.

That's not a guaranteed bottom signal — markets can stay fearful for longer than anyone expects. But the historical record is fairly consistent: periods of extreme, crowd-level fear have tended to mark the late stages of selloffs more than the early ones. Barron's put it plainly on Monday: even the most bearish S&P 500 year-end targets from firms like Stifel now imply upside from current levels. Bill Ackman went on CNBC and said it's "one of the best times in a long time to buy quality stocks." Morgan Stanley published a note saying the S&P 500 correction is showing "growing evidence of entering its ending stages."

None of these people are always right. But when scared sentiment and improving fundamentals converge, it's usually worth sitting up straighter.

The Stocks vs. ETFs Divide Right Now

One thing worth noting: this isn't a market where everything is equally damaged. Individual stocks with real pricing power, strong cash flows, and minimal debt exposure to energy costs have held up differently than levered, high-growth names burning cash. Apple and Amazon are down, but their businesses haven't changed. Microsoft closed its worst quarter since 2008 — painful — but it's still generating over $90 billion in free cash flow annually and sitting on a massive cloud infrastructure moat. These aren't broken companies; they're repriced ones.

Broad ETFs like QQQ and SPY average all of that together, which works in your favor on the way up and against you on the way down. The filter tool is genuinely useful right now for finding individual names that have sold off hard but still show strong cash flow, ROIC above WACC, and reasonable forward multiples.

Where Things Stand Heading Into Q2

Earnings season kicks off in mid-April, and it's going to matter a lot. The companies reporting first are the big financials — JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America — and what they say about credit quality, loan demand, and their economic outlook will set the tone. After that come the tech giants, where any guidance cuts will extend the pain and any upside surprises could accelerate the recovery.

The Iran situation is still fluid. Today's rally was encouraging, but a peace signal and an actual ceasefire are different things. Hormuz is still not fully open. Powell said at Harvard on Monday that the Fed can "look past" the oil shock — no rate hike needed — but also warned that patience "has limits." The Fed isn't riding to the rescue anytime soon.

My honest read going into April: the easy macro tailwinds of 2024–2025 are gone. The "buy anything with AI exposure" trade is genuinely reset — not dead, but reset. What's left is more selective: companies with durable margins, manageable debt, and earnings power that doesn't depend on oil staying below $80. The fact that sentiment is at extreme fear levels while analysts still project 30%+ upside for the S&P 500 over the next year creates an interesting asymmetry for investors who can think past the current noise. That's not a guarantee. But historically, these aren't the conditions under which the long-term investor regrets staying invested.

Sources: Forbes: Best Day in 10 Months on de-escalation signals · Investopedia: Worst Quarter in Years · CNBC: How global markets traded the Iran war · WSJ: Wall Street finishing worst quarter in four years · CNBC: Gas hits $4 per gallon · Reuters: Big Tech's $635B AI spending faces energy shock test · CNBC: Bill Ackman says best time to buy quality stocks · MarketWatch: U.S. stocks faring worse than past geopolitical shocks · Benzinga: Fear & Greed remains in Extreme Fear zone · Barchart: WTI Crude Oil (Mar 31, 2026) · Stock Analysis: Nvidia Financials. Market data as of March 31, 2026 close. This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice.