Up, Up, And Away!!

Earlier this month, Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. Pause on that number for a second. For most of financial history, a billion dollars was an almost incomprehensible number. The entire U.S. economy did not cross the $1-trillion mark until 1969 (the year we landed men on the moon). 

The first trillion-dollar market cap for a single stock came in 2018, when Apple crossed the threshold. That’s when we became aware of many billionaires, mostly from the technology sector. The first person to be worth $100 billion was Bill Gates, in 1999. Now, one man is apparently worth a trillion dollars, as Musk’s SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share. Then SpaceX opened well above that mark and ran as high as $168 before closing near $161. As of this writing, that trading value is up to approximately $200 per share, pushing Musk’s personal stake past the trillion-dollar line (on paper at least). 

This Time, It’s Just One Guy

Keep in mind that when Apple became the first publicly traded company in history worth a trillion dollars, it did not represent a single individual—it was a company with 42 years of product growth, hundreds of thousands of employees, a global supply chain and tens of billions in annual profit. Surprisingly, now one man is worth as much as $1 trillion! 

However, it should be noted that a trillion in 2018 dollars would have had substantially more purchasing power than a trillion in 2026 dollars. Obviously, the strength of our dollar has shrunk significantly since 2018. 

This market looks to me today like maybe a best-case scenario. The Trump administration went from bombing threats with Iran to, for lack of a better term, hope for peace. “We are about to sign the truce papers this weekend,” he said before the signing agreement in France. If the truce holds, the market decline we experienced in the recent two weeks will only qualify as a correction, given no further spikes in oil or Treasury yields. 

The two main threats in the U.S. power structure—those capable of disproportionately pushing the market around—are the Federal Reserve and the president himself. As leaders of monetary and fiscal policy their actions can cause huge swings, both up and down, even in a good economy. The Trump administration did that with raised tariffs last year, and to a lesser degree with the Iran war this year (the timing of which could possibly have been postponed until after the November midterm elections). 

The Fed Factor

The Federal Reserve can obviously also impact markets, as done in late 2018 by over-tightening, or in 2022 with belated tightening. It looks like the next big swing in the stock market may come from the Fed and its new Fed chairman, who has ideas that are very different from predecessor Jerome Powell) about how to manage the Fed’s balance sheet and monetary policy. 

While it may be pointless to speculate ahead of time on the timing of future events, my guess is that the Fed will wait three to six months to get a handle on any significant supply-side inflation caused by the Iran war, and then it may manage its balance sheet operations with greater gusto.

Considering the fear of looking too political, the Fed should probably wait until after the November elections. However, there is no law saying when the Fed can act, as it is a judgement call coming from the Fed, whose independence I fully support. 

In the meantime, my guess is that this market rally continues, and it will probably create fresh all-time highs in the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 this summer. If there is no active or renewed war in Iran hanging over the market, the indexes in my opinion should also broaden out.

PUBLISHED JUNE 2026