Market Insights Recap — Week of March 16, 2026

Hello, I'm Steve Orr, Chief Investment Officer for Texas Capital's Private Bank. 

Today, I think we need to hit pause for a moment and regroup. We've spent the last year together reviewing market action and which way we think markets are headed, and we'll get back to that, but recently I dug into my investing lessons learned the hard way. 

You may recall from a month or so ago, lesson one: pay attention to the tape, not the noise, and lesson two: the trend is your friend—don't fight the tape, which comes from the great Marty Zweig's Trading Rules list. Why noise over fighting tape? Because for some of us, it's harder to tune out the noise than position against the market. Noise is external and internal—external chatter, social media can be overwhelming, forums, blogs, streaming news services, videos by guys in suits just add to the confusion, and price noise is amplified by daily options, betting services, retail herding, and all of that stuff. 

Pulling out the real tape action can be a challenge, so step one is to expand your time view: instead of looking at today's price action, step back and look at weekly or monthly timeframes. Taking the S&P 500 as an example, looking at the last several days the index has bounced down to lower lows and lower highs, falling about 2%, and while the media acts like it's a new bear market, for some sectors like financials they're already in correction territory, but the index itself is down barely 5% from its all-time highs—not the stuff of a bear market by any stretch. 

Moving out to weekly numbers, the market's down about the same as it was in November and in March 2024 and in March 2023, and notice I skipped March of last year when markets were gearing up, or rather down, for tariff Liberation Day. Other than tariff trauma, the index stayed in the primary uptrend despite temporary volatility along the way. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have moved largely sideways since Halloween in a consolidation period that told you to be patient as the market digested prior gains, and being patient is one of the hardest things to do in investing because you're fighting that internal noise—not the extra salsa you had at lunch, but your fight or flight response yelling at you and your brain. 

Now, I'm no authority on brain operation, but hard-won experience does help here: it's not what happens on the tape, it's how you respond to it, and having an investing plan and working with someone you trust is key to calming the urge to do something when the market goes up or down more than you expect. The recent action in gold doubling over the last couple of years is a good example, as the move caught a lot of folks offsides and they rushed in—but were precious metals part of their long-term plan or just a fun trade because they heard about it on TV? 

I want you to think about lesson three this week: retail thinks about market timing, but professionals think about position sizing, meaning if it's a good trade it matters how much risk I'm willing to take, not necessarily when, not trying to get the bottom, not trying to avoid the top. 

As for what else is on tap this week, Wednesday's Fed meeting will see no change in short-term rates, but we do expect the Fed press release to at least discuss inflation from oil prices in some fashion, as producer price inflation hovered around 3% last month but next month's reading will reflect the 30% jump in pump prices. 

To wrap it up: keep the noise at bay, fight the voices in your head, and lean on a trusted advisor, always look at the bigger-time picture with weekly, monthly and even annual trends in markets whether it's rates, oil, stocks or whatever, and remember to think about sizing a position, not timing; 'til next time.