Inflation hit a three-year high in May 2026. The culprit was energy prices. The cause of higher energy prices was an ongoing war in Iran. Financial media published a chart to explain this connection between war and the cost of filling your tank.
Groundbreaking journalism.
Some retail trader in Michigan is staring at this chart right now. He's studying the breakdown. He's noting which categories went up and which stayed flat. He's building a thesis about shelter inflation versus food inflation. He's convinced this information gives him an edge. The war started months ago. Oil futures moved the same day bombs started dropping. He's looking at a May inflation report in June and thinking he's early to the trade.
He is not early to the trade.
The chart shows energy jumped because Iran supplies oil and wars disrupt supply chains. This is the kind of insight you'd get from asking a third-grader what happens when you bomb the place that makes the thing everyone needs. But it took an entire newsroom to turn that into a colorful bar chart with a headline that promises a breakdown.
The breakdown is this: things cost more when you blow them up.
Technical patterns don't care about inflation prints. The chart of SPY already told you everything this inflation report confirmed. It told you weeks ago. It told you in real time as institutions repositioned. But retail needed a chart within a chart - a meta-chart, if you will - to understand that war makes gas expensive.
The May inflation report is June's news about April's economy. By the time you read the breakdown, funds have already traded it twice and moved on. You're studying a Polaroid while they're watching live video.
Iran's war will end or it won't. Energy prices will fall or they won't. Your chart reading won't predict either outcome, but it will give you something to blame when your calls expire worthless.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Leave a Comment