Just when I thought I had heard every market acronym and investing jargon there was, I learned a new one this week – Kangaroo Market.

A Kangaroo market is defined as “a highly volatile, non-trending financial market characterized by rapid, sharp, and erratic price movements that bounce up and down without a clear, sustained direction.” Sound familiar?

This is a perfect depiction of markets in recent weeks. And even while the headline damage has not been overly severe (S&P 500 was only down 1.2% on the year as of 3/11/26 and down 3% from its highs), the “jumpiness” has taken its toll on many investors. The market’s fear gauge (as measured by the volatility index) has jumped 75% in 2026. At the same time, dispersion (a measure of how stocks move against each other) has contracted, indicating that stocks are reacting as a group to macro data versus moving individually based on company-specific data. This is a frustrating combination for investors as market swings increase (in both directions) and there is seemingly “no place to hide” (as all sectors/stocks are moving as a herd (of kangaroos!))

What are some of the items moving markets?

Undoubtedly, the main driver has been the ongoing conflict in Iran. Any announcement concerning oil and the Strait of Hormuz moves markets instantly, as do announcements by the Administration (such as President Trump’s comments this week that the war is “very complete”). Hopes of a shorter conflict earlier in the week calmed markets and oil prices fell. However, as the week progressed, tensions escalated and quickly reversed those trends.

Economic data released this week held its own and likely kept markets from being even jumpier. Consumer inflation (CPI) for February was announced without much fanfare. CPI rose 2.4% last month matching January’s rise and coming in slightly below 2.5% expectations. Talk already moved on to March’s reading as it is likely to be pushed higher due to rising oil prices given the Iran conflict. If everything else were to stay the same, the ~20% increase in WTI crude prices would push CPI up by 0.3-0.4%. However, everything else won’t stay the same so we’ll see what next month’s print brings.

On the jobs front, weekly initial jobless claims also came in slightly better than expectations. With inflation likely (but not guaranteed) to rise and jobs holding their own, it’s likely the Federal Reserve won’t take any action on rates anytime soon -especially without seeing how the tick-up in oil/gas prices flows thru to the economy.

For now, we are facing a Kangaroo market without any way to predict how or when it may return to more normal conditions. As always, we need to “breath in and zoom out” – attempting to stay calm in the face of this chaos and reminding ourselves that we’ve endured jumpy markets before and lived to tell about it.

Onward we go,