Plus: the fired-est boys in finance March 9, 2026 Sign Up | View online In This Issue 8 min read 🛢️ Oil shocks 🍼 Edmonton explodes 🥶 Dubai cools down Remember those endless gas queues back in the 1970s? Yeah, neither do we. Too young. That’ll never happen again — right? | Getty Images The Week in Markets Just how dire are these straits? Back in the summer of 2008 — just before the crash — oil prices surged, consumer spending tightened, corporate profit margins shrank, hiring slowed, and the credit markets went from loan-a-palooza to quiet panic. And while it's true that click hounds have been clamoring about the next 2008 since … 2008, even measured voices like Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal are starting to wonder if this time might be different. This time, after all, we’ve also got a widening war in the Persian Gulf, an unpredictable U.S. president, and an unprecedented variable — the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — that could cause pump prices to nearly double by the end of March. Given all of the grim news, in fact, it’s sort of wild how global markets remained so sanguine for so long. Farther down, we’ll get deeper into one of the chief reasons why, but even now, recent ATHs still remain well within sight. Maybe investors have learned not to panic at every 2008-ish indicator. Or maybe two decades of false alarms have made them complacent. Somebody’s gotta be wrong. We might find out who as soon as this week. TSX: -3.2% (+3.8% YTD) S&P 500: -1.3% (-1.7% YTD) The Chart of the Week What Happened Last Week Important Now here’s a twist: Saskatoon is scorching … Somewhere, Joni Mitchell is beaming with pride. Her flat but mighty home has been the big winner so far in PM Mark Carney’s push to shore up Canada’s relationships across Asia. Following Carney’s fence-mending visit in January, China has eased some tariffs on Canadian goods and signalled that the province’s all-important canola exports could be next. And one of the most lucrative by-products of his détente with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week was a $2.6-billion uranium-supply deal for Canadian mining juggernaut Cameco, which is headquartered in the Paris of the Prairies. … and Dubai is going cold. Dubai has spent years and billions marketing itself as a safe, sunny, tax-free playground for expats and tourists (pay no mind to the mass indentured servitude), and in mere days that image disappeared. Explosions have rocked the city’s luxurious man-made Palm Jumeirah and Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest airport. Dubai’s cultural cachet was already waning even before the war, thanks to its burgeoning rep as a magnet for tax-dodging “washed-up old footballers,” as one U.K. parliamentarian put it. Maybe, he suggested, they can chip in to buy evacuation flights for all of the marooned tourists. Interesting Farmers want cheese curds to get some long-overdue respect. Quebec dairy farmers are seeking a special designation for cheese curds — the sloppy, salty, super-delicious topping for poutine, our greatest culinary export — similar to European labelling rules that permit only products meeting specific regional standards to use names like Champagne or Parmigiano Reggiano. According to one study, these designations can double a product’s value, and Quebec’s dairy industry is very powerful — so if they succeed, get ready for some pricey poutine. Meet — and maybe hire? — the finest boys in finance. Everyone is roasting two baby-faced Goldman Sachs dandies who were smart enough to land jobs at the elite investment bank but not smart enough to check with its comms team before donning Celine suits for this splashy spread in Interview magazine. Now HR wants to talk. —Claire Porter Robbins From Our Sponsor The FOMO Index by Stacey Woods Important 💞 New research reveals that prehistoric women preferred to mate with Neanderthal men. They kept a lot of the human men in the gatherer zone. Source 😐 Washington state introduces a bill that will prevent companies from forcibly microchipping employees. So cute to think there’ll still be employees! Source 🌞 B.C. permanently adopts daylight saving time. They’ll lose an hour of sleep but gain a lifetime of not talking about how dark it gets at five. Source 🦋 The white admiral butterfly becomes Montreal’s “official insect.” Sorry, bedbugs, but you knew you’d never break through the duvet ceiling. Source Crash & Burn To the Moon 🎒 Atlanta police issue warning when canned martini is found in child’s lunch box. Remember, parents, alcoholic drinks like these should really be served in a stemmed glass. Source 🛒 Customers complain when supermarket chatbot rambles about its “mother.” Store promises from now on it’ll only talk about its ex-wife. Source 📱 Finnish company Jolla is launching what it calls a “European phone.” All we know about it so far is that it doesn’t work in the afternoon. Source 🐵 Study finds chimps share humans’ fascination with crystals. Now if they’d just stop throwing feces at people during yoga. Source Who Cares? The Big Important Story These Three Charts Explain Why War in Iran Hasn’t Cratered Stocks — Yet Iran’s unprecedented move last week to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for 20% of the world’s oil and gas, prompted the biggest sell-offs in several Asian and European stock markets since “Liberation Day” last April. But the rising risks of an energy shock (to say nothing of a widening regional war) didn’t trigger a full-blown market rout like you might expect. U.S. stocks ended the week down just 1.3%, while the TSX sank by 3.6%. Not great! But the S&P is still up 20% since this time a year ago and the TSX is north 35%. So how come U.S. and Canadian investors, in particular, remained so calm last week? We found three charts that point to an answer. During the 1973 Oil Embargo, prices surged nearly 211% over six months, sparking a crippling global recession. But this isn’t the early ’70s or, for that matter, the early aughts, when crude prices rose by 628% over five years. As the Financial Times explained, shipping routes and pipelines have reduced global reliance on the Strait of Hormuz, and countries like the U.S. and China can lean on their strategic reserves. As of late Sunday night (when we finally gave up and went to sleep), crude oil had surpassed $115/barrel — a 72% jump since the war in Iran started. That’s dramatic! But it’s not economy-crushing (at least not yet). There’s no denying that things are uncertain right now. But if you look at a wonky metric called the oil futures curve — which reflects what traders are betting oil prices will be in the future and what some big consumers, like airlines, are actually paying to lock in future supply — it shows that investors still believe, quite strongly, that supply will come back to normal within a year and the impact of recent disruptions will be limited. Why? U.S.’s and Israel’s operational success (so far) and a U.S. pledge to insure and escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. This optimism helps to explain why other sectors, especially U.S. stocks, have held fairly stable to this point. Oil remains Canada’s largest export — by far — but we use far less of it ourselves to spur business activity than we did three decades ago. That’s primarily because (1) vehicles and machines are more efficient, (2) natural gas and renewables have scaled up, and (3) we have a lot more service-oriented jobs that don’t require as much energy as, say, manufacturing. The U.S., our top trading partner, is even more energy efficient than we are, helping to insulate our interlinked economies from oil shocks. In fact we’re both now net energy exporters, meaning we produce so much domestically that we have extra to sell abroad — an advantage that most of our Asian and European allies lack. Now allow us to hedge everything we just said All of this explains why markets didn’t tank last week. But the longer this war drags on, the more likely it is we see oil prices continue to climb. Those numbers are already getting lots of headlines. But it’s worth bearing in mind that Canada and the U.S. are far better positioned than most to withstand an energy jolt. —Jared Sullivan The Big Listen 📽️ RedBird’s CEO Swears WarnerMount Won’t Be a Bloodbath Paramount’s mega-purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery never would’ve succeeded without the stewardship of Gerry Cardinale, CEO of RedBird Capital Partners, arguably the most influential dealmaker in media. Now that the dust is settling, Hollywood is freaking out about ParaBros US$79 billion in debt, so Cardinale tried to settle the town’s nerves by explaining to Puck’s Matt Belloni how on earth they’ll service it without mass layoffs. Unless you’re susceptible to bombardments of business jargon (flywheels! cost rationalizations!), you probably won’t be persuaded — but it sure is amusing to listen to him try. | The Town Post of Wisdom Thoughts on Today’s Issue? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Brennan Doherty (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Eva Grace Clement Cruz (specialist, product engagement), Setareh Sarmadi (senior editorial producer), Matthew Karasz (markets editor), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). 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